Depending on negotiations with a city contractor, Benicia Industrial Park may have broadband Internet service as soon as the end of the year, Steve Blum, president of Tellus Venture Associations told Benicia City Council Tuesday night.
The need for fast, commercial- and industrial-grade Internet service with wide bandwidth for Industrial Park companies was recognized four years ago, Economic Development Director Mario Giuliani said before handing the microphone to Blum.
But between the effects of the recession when it finally hit Benicia and the high quoted prices to get the service to the area, the city couldn’t afford to provide fast broadband to the Industrial Park, Giuliani said.
Then, in 2012, the city earmarked $750,000 for broadband, taking money from the $1 million it had reserved for a proposed intermodal project, including a train station that would give Benicia an Amtrak stop.
The city, working with Tellus, began addressing the high prices quoted in the past. In November 2013, Benicia issued a request for proposals for new solutions to getting service to the park.
Of three responders, two offered wireless service, which Giuliani said might be incorporated into tenants’ service later. One proposal, by Lit San Leandro, would rely on fiber, and would involve local Internet service providers.
That proposal met both tenant and technical needs, Blum said.
Lit San Leandro developed as a company to solve Internet problems in San Leandro. The Federal Communications Commission has said their approach is how all cities’ needs should be handled, Blum told the Council.
Its plan would use city conduits to build the core fiber network with laterals that would deliver service powerful enough to handle movie studios, three-dimensional printing and other types of commercial development that heavily relies on the Internet.
Blum said the city would spend the $750,000 to become the anchor tenant. That would guarantee the city a piece of the bandwidth, he said.
He said the needs of commercial and industrial interests differ from what a customer uses at home.
“AT&T and Comcast do a good job, but they’re not in the business of commercial and industry-grade Internet,” Blum said.
And providing the service to the Industrial Park would make the site more appealing to future tenants, he said: Lit San Leandro’s products should last at least 30 years, and could be working 40 years or more.
He said no new technologies yet are on the horizon that would make the system obsolete.
Since San Leandro put its system in place, animation and three-dimensional printing companies have moved in, accompanied by microbreweries.
“Gigabit connectivity is a key selling feature for underused industrial property,” Blum said, tying broadband availablity to the addition of jobs and economic growth.
Not only that, but other Internet providers — including those that had submitted more expensive alternatives in years past — become interested in offering services at more modest rates, Blum said. Just as happened in San Leandro, he expects AT&T and others to begin installing Internet fiber once Lit San Leandro starts work in Benicia.
“It’s cause and effect — not a coincidence,” he said.
Benicia and Lit San Leandro have a tentative agreement and are working out finer details before a contract is presented to the Council, Blum said. Once that document is signed, construction can begin, and might be finished as soon as the end of the year.
“Thank you so much,” said Jasmin Powell, president of the Benicia Industrial Park Association.
In the past, Powell has told Mayor Elizabeth Patterson that lack of broadband has prevented desirable companies from moving to Benicia.
Powell said at her home, she can get Internet service of 40 megabytes a second for $40 a month. At her business at the Industrial Park — she is vice president of Dunlop Manufacturing — she pays $1,000 a month for 10 megabytes a second.
“It’s horrible out there,” she said.
Leave a Reply