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By Ron Calhoun
Mayor Bibb’s administration submitted two pieces of legislation for Council approval. The first was a $20 million proposal from Digital C, a Cleveland-based, non-profit technology enterprise that provides fixed wireless internet citywide. The second proposed legislation was an agreement with SiFi Networks to privately invest over $400 million to deploy a citywide fiber optic network, without any public financing. Both were presented at the City Council meeting on Monday, May 8.
There was also a special presentation by Digital C just before the regular council meeting. Digital C states on its website that they have connected more than 1,100 households, including the homes of more than 900 Cleveland Metropolitan School District students.
Digital C is bringing an additional $20 million-dollar grant received from the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Foundation and the David and Inez Myers Foundation. Last July, Digital C was federally granted $3 million to provide affordable, high-speed (35 megabyte) internet to the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood in Cleveland.
A City of Cleveland press release states that Digital C already offers access to thousands of households in Cleveland. They plan to expand their coverage to all 170,000+ households within 18 months of signing a contract with the city, pending City Council approval. They are a company that has taken 7 years to sign up 1,100 subscribers and 900 households.
Why would residents sign up now for a service not available for 7 years or 2 years minimum? 
SiFi Networks is revolutionizing the US telecom market through private funding, building and operating citywide, open access, 10G fiber networks. For context, think about how water travels in a pipe. A kilobyte is like a straw. A megabyte is like a 1/4″ copper pipe. A gigabyte would be a sewer in the street tall enough for a man to walk in. SiFi Networks offers an open-access network that enables service providers of all sizes to access new markets without the cost of constructing a network.
Why Digital C? Was there a Request For Proposals (RFP) process to choose a Provider? Was there community input?
Here are more questions that need to be answered for the City Council and the residents of Cleveland.
General Questions
- How long has SiFi Networks been building networks?
- How many projects in other cities are completed?
- Do they have other projects of this size?
- Is there any data available for the work they have completed?
Issues? Accidents? Customer service? - What is the Installation status of the current 11 cities where they are working?
- Is the infrastructure going to be available to all ISP’s?
- If SIFI is going to provide the fiber and ISP’s are providing the service, what is Digital C’s role?
- “The funds will also be used to expand Digital C nationally.” What does this mean? Is the city paying to promote them nationally?
- In terms of labor capacity, will they bring in a full crew or hire locally? If locally, how many?
Technical Questions
- Is this a full-scale build out of a fiber network? If not, where is the focus? In what neighborhoods?
- How will they install the fiber? Above ground? Underground?
Front Yard? Back Yard? - How does the fiber get to the home from the Network Access Point (NAP)?
Above ground? Underground? Digital C? - Who is going to provide the installation of the fiber and terminal to the home? Does Digital C have experience in running cable? When and where?
- Where will the HUB or central office be located? Who will maintain it?
- How many ISP providers are already signed up in other cities?
Contractual Questions
- Once a contractor has completed a project like this, what is the contractor’s anticipated revenue? Is there a financial projection?
- Is Digital C open to Revenue Sharing or a percentage of your revenue as a community benefit?
- When will Digital C apply for state funding?
The premise is that the more information they provide assists the City Council in making a better decision on whether to pass legislation.