Austin Utilities, a community-owed, non-profit utility (water, electric and natural gas) has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) seeking an ISP as its management partner to run the wireless broadband network in the city and offer Internet access to residents and businesses. Austin Utilities owns the fiber network which the ISP can use as backhaul. The current ISP/management partner is closing down its operations so the utility needs to find a replacement. For more details, please read the Austin Utilities RFP. The deadline for responses is 23 August 2010 at 13:00.
Background: Austin Utilities issued the first RFP in March 2007 and launched the network with its then ISP partner in October 2008.
Austin Utilities (Minnesota) RFP for wireless ISP to manage citywide network
About Esme Vos
I read through the proposal and a couple things stood out.
1) The city wants less than 10% truck rolls.
2) The city wants the vendor to share in the risks.
Based on the support requirements of the city, I didn’t see the costs being less than revenue, especially when you add in the movement costs and the level of support and response time required. It was hard to understand what you could charge per month but I didn’t see the Utility company making a profit on this one.