Michael, all, I'm not too surprised. We've seen sole source documentation created in a number of city/county/state projects for a variety of reasons. The most common reason being there were no competitors in a market able to provide the same product/service. In this case, city-wide high speed Internet for their mobile workers at a minimum upload/download speed. Currently the mobile carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc.) can't guaranty the numbers published. This is interesting because even Clear can't "guaranty" 100% coverage at the minimum 4mbps download speeds but, where there is adequate signal, they do - currently - offer a higher speed service than anyone else. The UnWire Portland / MetroFi proposal was meant to give this kind of coverage but many of us thought the business model was flawed as well as the coverage promised, which ultimately turned out to be true.
It would be interesting to hear the logic behind the decision and how testing was performed. But, given the current condition of city-wide wireless data service, I can understand their standpoint. I didn't notice a time frame for the contract but I would hope they would keep their options open for the faster, future EvDO, HSPA, etc., services that will be coming. Rick Lindahl "Your Wireless Solution Partner" Invictus Networks, LLC 503-635-2562, f 503-635-9207 http://www.invictusnetworks.com http://www.invictuswireless.com new estore -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Michael Weinberg Sent: Wednesday, June 10, 2009 11:40 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [ptp-general] City of Portland Purchasing $400K in Clearwire Service Just got word of this today, and it sounds as if it's a done deal, because Clearwire is the "sole supplier" capable of delivering the service. >From the sole source purchase justification document: "City bureaus need mobile high speed wireless Internet access in order to accomplish a variety of tasks including mobile field work relating to building inspections, law enforcement activities, and fire and rescue activities. The City currently has one vendor providing such services, however the City requires additional services that will allow City personnel to conduct certain work functions, including but not limited to, video conferences and other high quality video streaming. High quality video requires significant capacity (e.g., an MPEG2 video stream can require up to 3.75 Megabits per second of downstream capacity), therefore the City, having examined the alternatives wishes to utilize a high speed wireless Internet access with 4 Megabytes per second of a downstream connection and 384 Kilobytes per second of an upstream connection utilizing a wireless technology called WiMAX that is faster than any other cellular technology." Read the entire thing here: http://personaltelco.net/~luckymike/cityclearwirepurchase.pdf Had anyone heard about this? It sounds like they're using Clearwire for what MetroFi was supposed to accomplish but never did. -- Michael Weinberg President Personal Telco Project, Inc. A 501(c)(3) Non-Profit --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ The Personal Telco Project - http://www.personaltelco.net/ Donate to PTP: http://www.personaltelco.net/donate Archives: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.wireless.portland.general/ Etiquette: http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/MailingListEtiquette List information: http://lists.personaltelco.net To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
