Work Session_Broadband ExpansionCopyrighted
May 18, 2020
City of Dubuque Work Session - Top # 1.
ITEM TITLE: 5:30 PM - Broadband Expansion
SUMMARY: City staff will provide an update to City Council on
telecommunications projects with emphasis on fiber -to -the -
home, public/private partnerships, and expanded
broadband access.
SUGGESTED DISPOSITION:
ATTACHMENTS:
Description
Update on Broadband Expansion Work Session-MVM
Memo
Work Session Update on Broadband Expansion
Type
City Manager Memo
Staff Memo
Masterpiece on the Mississippi
TO: The Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
FROM: Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
SUBJECT: Work Session - Update on Broadband Expansion
DATE: May 13, 2020
Dubuque
bitil
All-A.aia City
111111
2007.2012.2013
2017*2019
Information Services Manager Chris Kohlmann, Sustainable Innovation Consultant
Dave Lyons and Civil Engineer II Dave Ness are providing an update on
telecommunications projects with emphasis on fiber to the home, public -private
partnerships and expanded broadband access.
Michael C. Van Milligen
MCVM:jh
Attachment
cc: Crenna Brumwell, City Attorney
Teri Goodmann, Assistant City Manager
Cori Burbach, Assistant City Manager
Chris Kohlmann, Information Services Manager
David Lyons, Sustainable Innovation Consultant
Dave Ness, Civil Engineer II
TO:
FROM:
SUBJECT:
DATE:
Masterpiece on the Mississippi
Michael C. Van Milligen, City Manager
Chris Kohlmann, Information Services Manager
David Lyons, Sustainable Innovation Consultant
Dave Ness, Civil Engineer II
Update on Broadband Expansion
May 12, 2020
INTRODUCTION
Dubuque
III -Merin City
11111
2007.2012.2013
2017*2019
The purpose of this memo is to provide an update on telecommunications projects with
emphasis on fiber to the home, public private partnerships and expanded broadband
access.
BACKGROUND
In 2016 the City of Dubuque undertook its Broadband Acceleration Initiative. The
Initiative focuses on public/private collaborations and includes a comprehensive
strategy to reduce the cost and time required for broadband expansions in Dubuque.
One effort within that strategy is the use of "Master Agreements", where an overall legal,
structural, and financial relationship is established between the City and broadband
providers and approved by City Council. Project Statements carried out pursuant to that
Master Agreement can then be quickly considered and approved
With a continued growth in both number of devices and bandwidth required to support
applications, the "whenever, wherever, however" demand for "connectivity" has
continues to grow exponentially as "work from home", on-line education, e-commerce
and streaming entertainment become the norm. The trend does not show signs of
leveling off soon.
As a mid -sized city in middle America, Dubuque has been forging a public -private
broadband model that is unique. Our city is too large to embrace the "small" community
strategy on broadband which is to "build their own." This strategy was believed not
viable for Dubuque due to both the size and topography of the community (making it too
expensive) and the unusually high level of complexity/demand in the local economy
(one -size -won't -fit -all).
Dubuque is not a fit for the strategy used by "large" communities which facilitates
access to relatively dense populations for market leaders/innovators (ie "Google fiber"
coming to Kansas City.) The apparent "minimum population" needed for this strategy
seems to be a community of 500,000 or greater, which was obviously beyond
Dubuque's capacity.
Dubuque has created a "middle -path", one which combines both public and private
sectors into a "connectivity collaboration." Greater Dubuque Development Corporation
through the Sustainable Innovations worked with the City to identify a means to "kick-
start" such a collaborative environment, settling on a strategy that used "underutilized
assets" controlled by the City to reduce costs, reduce time and accelerate private
broadband investments. With 80 — 90% of the cost of a new fiber optic installation tied
to conduit along with the installer's time consumed the collaborative approach offers a
"win -win" strategy.
Sustainable Innovations creates, fosters, and prioritizes the integration of the best
practices and opportunities to improve the sustainability and resiliency of the Greater
Dubuque area for continued economic growth. It builds on the work of Greater Dubuque
Development's private sector initiative (Sustainable Innovation Consortium) in
collaboration with the City of Dubuque's Sustainable Dubuque activities and expands
the private and public sector expertise available to analyze and recommend action on
the area's best opportunities.
A flexible value proposition was developed which identified increased revenue,
decreased costs and/or added development potential as required outcomes for the City.
Greater Dubuque Development Corporation took the "first step" by describing the
strategy and reaching out to private sector providers for input and continues to work
with the City, internet service providers, broadband installers, utilities and other public
and private partners moving toward a goal of a connected community.
In 2016, the City began with 35 miles of available conduit and fiber optic assets. Since
that time agreements with providers including Wisconsin Independent Networks, CS
Technologies, ImOn, Comelec, Centurylink, Mediacom, ICN, Unite Private Networks,
MVlink, and Alliant have expanded capacity, speed, and resiliency of broadband
services, fiber optic and conduit resources to Dubuque.
DISCUSSION
Several innovations have been developed to support Dubuque broadband acceleration
efforts, including but not limited to the following examples:
• During last year's Iowa DOT Lighting upgrade, the state agreed to add additional
infrastructure to the project within the existing lighting conduit on the
bridge. Using advanced microfiber technologies this allowed the City to add 10
cameras giving complete coverage of the bridge crossing. This conduit also
serves as a connection to East Dubuque for future partnerships with a high -count
fiber optic cable connecting us together.
• To improve fiber quality and count, removal of old low count fiber in many of the
backbone runs in Dubuque and added microduct (which multiplies the capacity)
and upgraded the fiber count from 24 strands to 144 strand in one of those
microduct has been completed. Our goal is to continue this process throughout
the city over the next few years. Soon this new fiber that was installed will allow
us to create redundant loops for seamless failovers if cuts or outages occur.
• Newly installed fiber has allowed for installation of new video management
servers at the 3rd Street Water Tower location. This facility is much better suited
to house this type of equipment and will become the "meet -me" point for future
partnerships with other broadband carriers. We are currently working on a
partnership with the Iowa DOT to share many of the camera feeds located on the
state routes with their Traffic Management Center in Ankeny.
• Another goal and outcome of public -private partnerships is preserving the Right
of Way (ROW.) Utilities all compete for ROW and room is disappearing quickly -
if each provider runs their own duct separately the conduits end up very random
and use up all the available space. By joint trenching and boring, all these ducts
are located within inches of each other thus preserving ROW. This also helps
keep locates to a minimum during future construction in the area.
• Staff and consultant HRGreen are currently reviewing and updating all City
regulatory systems and rules. The emphasis will continue to be on how can the
City continue to leverage the use of "underutilized assets" controlled by the City
to reduce costs, reduce time and accelerate private broadband investments
along with strategic partnerships furthering business, public sector and
residential uses.
• On the near -term horizon, 2020 includes some larger projects coming to
Dubuque. Specifically, these include:
o STREETS Program (Smart Traffic Routing with Efficient and Effective
Traffic Signals) relying heavily on the existing connectivity of traffic signals
and cameras.
o A SW Arterial Fiber and Camera Intelligent Transportation Systems
Project
o Major Fiber to the Home deployments
o Large public -private joint communications project that spans across the
city. The city's fiber duct system may grow by another 30 miles this
year. Multiply that by the number of ducts installed and it equals over a
million feet of useable duct space in one year
Increasing broadband access to low and moderate -income households continues to be
a goal for the short and long term to support educational, skills training, work -from -
home, health, and other residents' telecommunications needs. There remains a "gap"
that will likely not be closed by private sector efforts alone. This will require new forms
of public/private collaborations, and in some cases direct public efforts. Staff is working
on the development of a set of "pilot" efforts to present to City leadership for
consideration including utilizing CDBG funding for wireless services along the Bee -
Branch and in Comiskey Park.
ACTION REQUESTED
We would ask that you review this information and respectfully request that it be
included as part of information shared during the work session of the Dubuque City
Council on the subject of Update on Broadband Expansion scheduled for Monday May
18, 2020.
Cc: Crenna Brumwell, City Attorney
Barry Lindahl, Senior Counsel
Steve Brown, Project Engineer