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City Council Regular Meeting Minutes April 25, 2006 Page 14 1 business. Ms. Johnson stated that level of market share is not very realistic so they would have 2 to look for grant monies, seek alliances with surrounding communities who may want a system, 3 leverage public /private partnerships to share cost, and investigate sharing access. They 4 recommended the City implement a fiber and conduit policy with upcoming construction so any 5 time the City is doing a major street dig it should look at implementing conduit and fiber at that 6 time. 8 City Manager Morrison noted the Council packet included a summary report and staff has 9 additional detail if the Council would like to review that document. 10 11 Councilmember Thuesen asked about having two systems. 12 13 Tom Asp, CTC, explained that the vendor community wants you to believe they have the 14 standard network but every Wi Fi network is a proprietary network with a standard based 15 interface. There are fairly large cost swings in deploying the architecture of the network. He 16 explained that they reviewed two placeholder networks and used a Tropos network in the 17 estimates since it is used by several other communities. A comparative is Sky Pilot, which 18 would reduce capital requirements by $114,000, which relates to a 5% market share difference 19 between the two networks to maintain the needed financial threshold. 20 21 Councilmember Stille referenced the break even point is 52% residential and 25% commercial. 22 Mr. Asp explained that is market share percentage, which is quite aggressive. Chaska is about 23 30% of market share so it may be easy to get to that percentage but a harder push to get beyond 24 that level. 25 26 Councilmember Gray asked if 82% is of internet users, not wireless users. Mr. Asp stated that is 27 correct and the market will be slightly larger than that. In the Moorhead and St. Louis Park pilot 28 program, 50% of the new subscribers are coming from dial up internet, 10% are new users, 13% 29 from cable, and 10% from DSL. 30 31 Councilmember Stille noted that St. Anthony is not St. Louis Park or Woodbury and has 32 different demographics. Mr. Asp stated they did surveys with other communities but decided for 33 cost savings to use a feasibility study instead of a survey for St. Anthony. He noted that in 34 looking at the 2000 census data, St. Anthony tracks closely with St. Louis Park in terms of 35 internet usage. In Woodbury, just over 90% of households have internet access. 36 37 Councilmember Stille stated the difference between St. Louis Park and St. Anthony is that the 38 residents ages 25 to 44 and 65 are flip flopped. He asked what is feasible and what is the gap. 39 Mr. Asp stated without doing specific research in St. Anthony, it is just an estimate and he thinks 40 it is about a 15 -point gap or maybe $350,000. Mr. Asp stated if you want to pursue this system, 41 there are ways to look at creating a larger customer base by including surrounding communities 42 and to share some of the common expenses among a larger user base. Other options are to create 43 alliances with private partners to provide hosting or explore the performance contracting 44 concept. 45 46 Mr. Asp noted that while police and fire personnel are in the City's boundaries a majority of the 47 time, they would need another data terminal if they are outside the boundaries. That is a benefit