Ocean City, New Jersey has issued a Request for Proposals seeking an integrator to build and operate the city-owned wireless broadband network. They expect to choose a winner on 13 September 2007 and have network up in May 2008. Read up on how the city plans to use the network.Ocean City, New Jersey has issued a Request for Proposals seeking an integrator to build and operate the city-owned (but provider-funded) wireless broadband network. They expect to choose a winner on 13 September 2007 and have network up in May 2008. The city’s model is interesting in that they will use the network for wireless beach tags and public safety (and other applications).
The deadline for responding to the RFP is July 26, 2007. You can download the document from the city’s website.
The city will own the network although it will not spend money to build it. The approximate cost of building the network is $2.5 million. The costs of operating it are in the charts below. The winning bidder has to take the risk of building the network and investing in it, but the city believes there’s a significant return based on advertising and subscription revenues.
Here are two charts showing the expected revenues and savings to the city (and to the providers). These charts, created by the city’s consulting firm MRI, are in Attachment 3 of the RFP.
They must be smoking something. Ocean City is a seasonal town that is crowded during the summer months (120,000) and a ghost town (15,000) for the rest of the year. I don’t see how any investor could make money at this.
I think the city can offer up their infrastructure to any investor who may want to build (and own) a city-wide network in exchange for reduced rates for fire, police, water, beach tags, whatever.
Hmmmmmm….ok, some company comes in and spends a ton of money, does a lot of install work, supports the customer base, makes repairs, gives access away to the city (for free), gives access away to vacationers (who are the bulk of the entire business but who are only around for three months), sell subscriptions to everyone else (at city dictated rates), who likely already have internet access. Oh and here’s the best part – for the priveledge of all this, they do not even get to keep the network. WHATS IN IT FOR THE COMPANY? Looks like not a thing – pathetic.
I think the Ocean City board has been watching too many episodes of the Sopranos…I’d like to see the company that dumb enough to “win” this contract.
Its really strange how few elected officials exhibit any business sense whatsoever – but then again, I suppose as long as there are desperate companies without a clue how to effectively run a business (read:for profit) there will always poor saps willing to throw their money at a hopeless project like this one. It is far worse than Frank describes above – EVERYONE gets free access (locals, tourists, businesses) except for something they call “Business Class Service” which is not defined. Seeing as Ocean City, NJ is widely known as the hub for commerce in the North Eastern US, I don’t see how a company would have any trouble at all recouping the costs of what appears to be a completely free service that the city gets to own at no cost. In fact – there doesn’t seem to be a cost for anyone at all except for the silly company DUMB enough (or unlucky enough) to actually win the RFP.
How sad what a mess the local gov’ts are making out of something as brutally useful as wi-fi.
Seems Earthlink has quietly learned their lesson about silly business models such as this one and have stopped hinging their company’s future by hitching their wagons to the uneducated morons we have running our local town governments. Google has quietly learned their lesson about how 1 cent per click ads cannot support a wi-fi infrastructure. When are the towns themselves going to learn??? WI-FI CANNOT BE FREE YOU IDIOTS!!!!
Wake up.
Yeah, well…looks like everyone was right because it never came about!