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City Council Regular Meeting Minutes <br />April 25, 2006 <br />Page 14 <br />1 business. Ms. Johnson stated that level of market share is not very realistic so they would have <br />2 to look for grant monies, seek alliances with surrounding communities who may want a system, <br />3 leverage public/private partnerships to share cost, and investigate sharing access. They <br />4 recommended the City implement a fiber and conduit policy with upcoming construction so any <br />5 time the City is doing a major street dig it should look at implementing conduit and fiber at that <br />6 time. <br />7 <br />8 City Manager Mornson noted the Council packet included a summary report and staff has <br />9 additional detail if the Council would like to review that document. <br />10 <br />11 Councilmember Thuesen asked about having two systems. <br />12 <br />13 Tom Asp, CTC, explained that the vendor community wants you to believe they have the <br />14 standard network but every Wi Fi network is a proprietary network with a standard based <br />15 interface. There are fairly large cost swings in deploying the architecture of the network. He <br />16 explained that they reviewed two placeholder networks and used a Tropos network in the <br />17 estimates since it is used by several other communities. A comparative is Sky Pilot, which <br />18 would reduce capital requirements by $114,000, which relates to a 5% market share difference <br />19 between the two networks to maintain the needed financial threshold. <br />20 <br />21 Councilmember Stille referenced the break even point is 52% residential and 25% commercial. <br />22 Mr. Asp explained that is market share percentage, which is quite aggressive. Chaska is about <br />23 30% of market share so it may be easy to get to that percentage but a harder push to get beyond <br />24 that level. <br />25 <br />26 Councilmember Gray asked if 0'2% is of internet users, not wireless users. Mr. Asp stated that is <br />27 correct and the market will be slightly larger than that. In the Moorhead and St. Louis Park pilot <br />28 program, 50% of the new subscribers are coming from dial up internet, 10% are new users, 13% <br />.29 from cable, and 10% from DSL. <br />30 <br />31 Councilmember Stille noted that St. Anthony is not St. Louis Park or Woodbury and has <br />32 different demographics. Mr. Asp stated they did surveys with other communities but decided for <br />33 cost savings to use a feasibility study instead of a survey for St. Anthony. He noted that in <br />34 looking at the 2000 census data, St. Anthony tracks closely with St. Louis Park in terms of <br />35 internet usage. In Woodbury, just over 90% of households have internet access. <br />36 <br />37 Councilmember Stille stated the difference between St. Louis Park and St. Anthony is that the <br />38 residents ages 25 to 44 and 65 are flip flopped. He asked what is feasible and what is the gap. <br />39 Mr. Asp stated without doing specific research in St. Anthony, it is just an estimate and he thinks <br />40 itis about a 15 -point gap or maybe $350,000. Mr. Asp stated if you want to pursue this system, <br />41 there are ways to look at creating a larger customer base by including surrounding communities <br />42 and to share some of the common expenses among a larger user base. Other options are to create <br />43 alliances with private partners to provide hosting or explore the performance contracting <br />44 concept. <br />45 <br />46 Mr. Asp noted that while police and fire personnel are in the City's boundaries a majority of the <br />47 time, they would need another data terminal if they are outside the boundaries. That is a benefit <br />E <br />