By Roger Jimenez, Interning Correspondent for The Apopka Voice
With rapid growth transforming the city, Apopka Police Chief Michael McKinley is urging its leaders to think ahead. During the June 11th Development Review Committee meeting, he discussed the possibility of requiring developers to install fiber conduits in new projects to support high-speed internet, thereby improving public safety technology that relies on it.
“The city has no infrastructure and isn’t planning on making any for fiber... We’ve looked at doing some intersection cameras, but our infrastructure restricted us,” McKinley said. “So as these new developments come in, can we require them to put conduit in to provide [the city] with the basics to start putting out infrastructure for fiber, and the city can have access to fiber in the future. We’re missing out on a lot of opportunities, and we are already millions and millions of dollars behind in trying to retrofit some of the areas of the city where we need fiber.”
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City Engineer Vlad Simonvski needed further clarification on the matter.
“I’m not fully understanding your question. So let’s talk about residential development. What is the benefit of having that in a residential development?” he asked.
“I don’t know if they need to go under the residential, we could probably branch them into later if we ever had to,” McKinley responded. “The primary concern is on our major arteries and infrastructure, we have the ability to run fiber for all the future growth that’s coming. What is our fiber capability for Wyld Oaks? Nothing. What is our plan for fiber connectivity in Wyld Oaks? Nothing. We are going to have a need for the intersection lights up there, improvements to signaling, and whatever else we’ll need.”
Simonvski responded, “The traffic lights will be connected to fiber. That’s for sure.”
“But who’s planning that?” McKinley asked.
Community Development Planner Jean Sanchez stated that the city met with a fiber company years ago, but no official plans were made.
McKinley added that having the developers make the infrastructure would also be a great financial benefit to the city.
“Had we already started having developers run our ability to have fiber, those costs could have gone from 8 million to 6 million or whatever… why can’t we have them lay the initial infrastructure in front of their subdivisions so that we have access to fiber, and that way, when we need the connectivity, we might need to do 15 miles, we’d only need 7 miles or something because some of it is already in place? If they want to come in and build, why not pass that cost on to them, and start preparing the city for a fiber infrastructure? The longer we wait, the more it’s going to cost us to complete this fiber.” Says McKinley
“It’s a little more complex than that,” Simonvski replied, citing concerns such as the role of private internet providers and what, exactly, the conduits would connect to.
Police Deputy Quinn Henry commented on the matter, stating the importance of saving costs by planning ahead instead of fixing future problems at a much higher cost.
“Doing this now so that we have it for the future helps us tremendously from a public safety perspective. I’d like to see that as a normal requirement, no matter who it is. Whether it’s developers, water or power companies, we just need to get into that mindset that it's easier to require it at the beginning than afterwards, because as we all know, it's super expensive to retro-fit anything, and we have to play catch-up.” Henry replied.
Simonvski responded with technical considerations: “The thing is, what is the capability of the provider? Can they slice it right? Can they have a dedicated line for us and at the same time, keep the services running they are providing to these private entities? So that’s something we need to define and discuss with them.”
“But we’re talking about two different things. You’re talking about the fiber itself. We’re talking about conduits. The fiber is something else, that comes after the fact… it’s just the conduit itself. That’s where the pricing can get astronomical when you’re trying to retro-fit it.” Said Henry.
McKinley concluded the discussion by urging the city to maintain full control over its own network infrastructure.
“I don’t think we should rely on conduits and the fiber run by private companies for our personal needs. We need our own dedicated tubing, our own dedicated fiber, so that we’re not restricted by what a private company says.”
Simonvski ultimately expressed support for developing fiber infrastructure and agreed to work with the police department and planning staff to explore possible next steps..
