In getting the network installed in Providence, one of the biggest challenges involved the often-overlooked task of negotiating access to ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ and deploying units onto ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ mounting assets, such as utility poles and public buildings.
This article originally appeared in the June 2007 issue of MuniWireless Magazine.
By Mike Perkowski
In getting the network installed in Providence, one of the biggest challenges involved the often-overlooked task of negotiating access to ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ and deploying units onto ‚Äö?Ñ?¨ mounting assets, such as utility poles and public buildings.
“There were several months of negotiations with the utility company about who was going to do what, whose people would be used, and so on,” says Nelson Santos, executive vice-president of Scientel, one of the subcontractors on the project.
In Providence, the local utility is Narragansett Light and Power, which is owned by National Grid, one of the world’s largest utility companies. Eventually, Motorola used National Grid as a subcontractor for work related to the mounting assets.
“It was much easier for National Grid to do it,” says Providence CIO Charlie Hewitt. “They didn’t have to worry about other people going up on the poles who were not certified or working up to their standard. After National Grid verified that this was a legitimate, bona fide project, they became very cooperative and helped expedite the process for the poles.”
However, even after the city received approval to use the utility poles, there were still problems. In fact, Hewitt says Providence’s biggest deployment challenge was getting the 50 access points mounted.
“That took the longest to implement, because each one is an engineering project. They had to be attached to buildings, something really firm to maintain a good point-to-point connection back to the antenna,” he says. “It turns out that things we thought would make a perfectly fine foundation to hang those on, like some chimneys, actually hadn’t been properly maintained.
“You strap one of these APs onto a chimney like that, the first storm that comes along will just snap it right off,” Hewitt says. “That was a surprise to us and our contractors. Motorola and Scientel had been working in some newer cities and suburbs where the structures were quite sound. In an industrialized city like ours, things are quite different.”
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