Uprgrading Broadband In Garden City Discussed

Anita Weston, Reporter

Rich Civic Times

GARDEN CITY, Utah.  January 14, 2016. A public hearing was held to discuss the possibility of broadband expansion in Garden City.  A consultant, Mr. Paul Wrecanzone, came to make some suggestions to assist the town in moving toward faster internet.

Garden City feels that more professional people and high tech businesses that do their work over the internet would be interested in moving to Garden City if there was a faster internet service available to them.  It would also help in the summer time when all of the communications services in the area are overloaded.

Paul noted that Howard Pope, from CentraCom, was in attendance at the meeting.  He requested that he come up to the table and take part in the discussion.  He noted that CentraCom needs to be part of the solution in obtaining faster transmission of information, whether it be voice, data, and so forth.

Pope noted that CentraCom has put a lot of fiber in place and that fiber is less costly than copper.  Getting fiber to every home would result in lower cost and would certainly increase bandwidth.  Currently, however, copper is what is being used. 

Wrecanzone noted that there are some grants and funding services for broadband development.  He said he would get information about these organizations back to the City so they could look further into those types of funding.

Mayor Spuhler asked if the City should begin to write some ordinances that would require developers to put in conduit as part of the required infrastructure.  Apparently many cities are beginning to require this.  Pope said that it would really help the communications companies.  Currently, when someone requests communications connections, CentraCom has to do everything necessary to make it possible for individuals to be serviced.  He noted that it is much less costly to have the conduit put in place at the same time that power lines are being installed.  The same trench can be used for both.  It is then a much easier and less costly activity to put the fiber into the conduit and add that service to each home.

Wrecanzone said he would send some copies of ordinances from other cities that requires conduit to be installed.  He said that there area standards that must be followed, and he will also include that information.  Conduit must be laid in a certain way, or it is not useable. 

It will take the cooperation of both public and private individuals to bring this plan into fruition.   Wrecanzone  noted that a partnership with CentraCom and Garden City would be good because both of these different entities have access to different funds.  Wrecanzone thought a committee that included the city engineer, the city attorney, CentraCom, and one or two independent people would be a good group to begin working on this project.  Pope indicated that he would contact his company about this project.  Paul noted that he would begin working on some ordinances and on creating a plan to get fiber to each home.