{"id":23,"date":"2014-02-08T13:43:35","date_gmt":"2014-02-08T21:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nela-isc.net\/blog\/?p=23"},"modified":"2022-05-31T18:49:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T18:49:57","slug":"la-city-fiber-request-for-proposals-rfp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/2014\/02\/08\/la-city-fiber-request-for-proposals-rfp\/","title":{"rendered":"LA City Fiber, Request For Proposals (RFP)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Late last year, in November 2013, LA City Council officially requested that the Information Technology Administration (ITA) department <a title=\"Engadget: Los Angeles moves forward with proposal for free citywide broadband\" href=\"http:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2013\/11\/05\/los-angeles-citywide-wifi-fiber\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">issue a Request For Proposals (RFP) for an open access fiber network installation<\/a>, along with the provision of <a title=\"LA Times: Free Wi-Fi across Los Angeles? City leaders make a new push\" href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/lanow\/la-me-ln-los-angeles-free-wifi-20131106,0,6073037.story#axzz2slahFDg1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">free low bandwidth wireless services<\/a> for the entire city (where higher bandwidth or uncapped WiFi services can charge arbitrary fees).<\/p>\n<p><iframe id=\"formalooIframe\" style=\"width: 100%; border: none;\" src=\"https:\/\/formaloo.net\/join-local-shares\" height=\"750\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The only incentives the Council provided are accompanying contracts to provide LA City institutions and buildings with long term Internet access and datacenter services. Unlike most <a title=\"Community Broadband Networks: Community Broadband Praised for Helping Small Businesses\" href=\"http:\/\/muninetworks.org\/content\/community-broadband-praised-helping-small-businesses\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">community Internet incentive programs<\/a>, they have not offered any discounts on rights-of-way passage or waivers for related permits and fees. The lack of real cost-saving incentives in this RFP have caused the press to equate this effort with a <a title=\"Ars Technica: Skeptics say LA\u2019s free fiber plan as plausible as finding a unicorn\" href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/information-technology\/2013\/11\/skeptics-say-las-free-fiber-plan-as-plausible-as-finding-a-unicorn\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">request for unicorns<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>It is pretty clear that LA City Council have always taken the wrong approach to getting broadband or fiber to LA residents and businesses (otherwise we would already have it by now!). We already have a successful municipal utility in LA that could easily deploy fiber to every business and resident in the city, using their existing rights of way and pole attachments (because fiber can be strung right next to power lines without ill effects): LA DWP. In fact, LA DWP already has a web page advertising <a title=\"LA DWP: Fiber Optics\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ladwp.com\/ladwp\/faces\/ladwp\/partners\/p-fiberoptics?_adf.ctrl-state=jkkkfwzuj_4&amp;_afrLoop=76409662531821&amp;_afrWindowMode=0&amp;_afrWindowId=null#%40%3F_afrWindowId%3Dnull%26_afrLoop%3D76409662531821%26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state%3D1c7ckw3hm9_4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;dark fiber leasing&#8221; services<\/a>, although they don&#8217;t respond to our calls or emails at the listed contact points.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, our new Mayor Garcetti just appointed a <a title=\"LA Mayor Eric Garcetti: New Leadership at DWP\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lamayor.org\/welcoming_marcie_edwards_to_dwp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new GM of LA DWP<\/a>, <a title=\"LA Times: Mayor Garcetti moves to 'shake up' DWP with four new board members\" href=\"http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/2013\/aug\/16\/local\/la-me-ln-garcetti-dwp-board-20130816\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new board members<\/a>, and a <a title=\"KCRW: Los Angeles Has A Tech Czar\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.kcrw.com\/whichwayla\/2014\/02\/los-angeles-has-a-tech-czar\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">new &#8220;Tech Czar&#8221;<\/a> &#8212; so why didn&#8217;t he give them all a mandate up front to get fiber out to LA residents as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, using existing LA DWP facilities? Why should the Council even contemplate a <a title=\"Ars Technica: Bigger than Google Fiber: LA plans citywide gigabit for homes and businesses\" href=\"http:\/\/arstechnica.com\/business\/2013\/11\/bigger-than-google-fiber-la-plans-citywide-gigabit-for-homes-and-businesses\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">exclusive offer to telco and cable monopolists<\/a> in the first place? The LA City Council RFP order actually contains instructions to\u00a0<a title=\"LA City Clerk: CITYWIDE MUNICIPAL WIFIINITIATIVE - COUNCIL FILE NO. 13-0953\" href=\"http:\/\/clkrep.lacity.org\/onlinedocs\/2013\/13-0953_ca_11-05-13.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">&#8220;not significantly influence\u00a0carrier competition&#8221;<\/a>, and LA DWP has so far failed to provide any real competition to the telco and cable Internet duopolies in LA. Cost-effective services and innovation require true market competition, and that does not exist in the Los Angeles Internet access market today.\u00a0Both the LA City Council and the Mayor Garcetti have a lot of explaining to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Late last year, in November 2013, LA City Council officially requested that the Information Technology Administration (ITA) department issue a Request For Proposals (RFP) for an open access fiber network installation, along with the provision of free low bandwidth wireless <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/2014\/02\/08\/la-city-fiber-request-for-proposals-rfp\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  LA City Fiber, Request For Proposals (RFP)<\/span><span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,7,10],"tags":[11,16,18,24,25,50,26,27,52,29,30,31,32,34,54,36,38,55,42,43,45],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet-surface-streets","category-low-income-internet-access","category-network-neutrality","category-your-rights","tag-broadband","tag-council","tag-duopoly","tag-infrastructure","tag-internet","tag-internet-surface-streets","tag-la-city","tag-ladwp","tag-low-income-internet-access","tag-mayor","tag-monopolies","tag-monopoly","tag-municipal","tag-neighborhood-networks","tag-network-neutrality","tag-peering","tag-poverty","tag-privacy","tag-rfp","tag-rights","tag-trust-networks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64,"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/64"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nela-shares.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}