Morgan Hill sent out a request for proposal to broadband internet providers June 17, before the city’s dark fiber lease agreement with Charter Communications ends.
The lease ends in 2022 and the request for proposal is seeking a provider that will serve the city’s public facilities. There is a possibility that Charter Communications comes back with a proposal of its own. Economic Development Manager for Morgan Hill, John Lang, said the request may also serve as an opportunity to increase wireless connectivity in the city.
Better wireless access was one of Mayor Rich Constantine’s biggest campaign platforms and “telecommunications” has been a priority of the city council for two years. Constantine said many times during his campaign for mayor that getting better wireless connection in the city would be the first step to getting tech businesses to build sites in Morgan Hill, offering more jobs to local residents and increased revenue from economic development.
“I’m hoping the RFP will give us more options than we already have,” Constantine told the Times. He said he hoped a provider would be able to give businesses the broadband network they need and said expanding the broadband network would also be helpful to families.
There are three “priorities” in the city’s request for proposal:
1. City Facilities – Cost effectively replace existing connectivity at comparable speeds;
2. Business Parks – Bring symmetrical gigabit access to the three business parks;
3. Residential and Mobile – Improve speed and availability of residential and mobile Internet access.
Lang said that while the city is mainly looking for a company to take over the dark fiber lease, it would be even more desirable if a provider would also be willing to increase internet speeds in underserved areas of the city.
Dark fiber is the broadband connection for all city facilities. For example, it is a telecommunication network that connects the city government and the police department. The current lease is between the city of Morgan Hill and Charter Communications, set to end in 2022. The city is looking for a provider to take over that lease, while also exploring opportunities for a provider that could work with the city to grow broadband services in Morgan Hill.
Lang told the Times that the city is giving incentive to providers by “allowing them to put those antennas on our facilities as a way to hopefully open up or provide an incentive for them to provide service to Morgan Hill.”
Proposals are due July 19 and the request said the city is looking for “a written submittal that outlines the experience and capabilities of the proposer as it relates to meeting to goals of this RFP. Proposers should be able to outline demonstrated experience delivering high-speed broadband to communities similar to Morgan Hill.”
Lang said these kind of public/private partnerships are difficult and could only happen if providers were interested, and it is possible that the RFP will not produce any responses. He said that while the city has been good about providing wireless connectivity in public spaces, this kind of partnership would be “in a much bigger scope and opportunity.”
