Economic Development
Dublin’s Wi-Fi Network Expands Citywide
Dublin will continue its advances in technology by becoming one of Ohio’s first cities to install a citywide Wi-Fi network. The wireless fidelity network (Wi-Fi) is a unique public/private partnership. Since Dublin’s successful deployment of Wi-Fi over a four-square mile area in 2006, the City has continued to expand the system for government use. Its partner, DHB Networks, also has added a consumer application.
The citywide network will provide wireless capabilities to anyone within the Dublin corporation limits. The Wi-Fi network will be available to residents on a subscriber basis via DHB’s AirWirz network.
“Establishing a wireless institutional network was our vision from the start,” says Deputy City Manager/Director of Economic Development Dana McDaniel. “It also provides a significant value-added service to our residents and businesses. Broadband is as essential as any other utility in the global economy, and it is the infrastructure of the future. The technology the City of Dublin already has in place is one of the reasons we were recognized as a 2008 Smart21 Community by the Intelligent Community Forum – an honor bestowed on a select number of communities around the globe.”
Dublin City Council will consider the Wi-Fi expansion agreement with DHB Networks at its regular meeting April 7. The terms of the agreement call for the City to pay DHB $620,000 from its Capital Improvements Program in annual installments through 2012.
DHB will continue to engineer, deploy, maintain and operate the system and will be paid a monthly fee of $8,500 by the City for the service for a five-year period. DHB agrees to pay the City $350,000 from profits received when DHB has achieved more than 5 percent of the market share. At the conclusion of the payment schedule, DHB agrees to continue to provide service to Dublin for an additional five-year period with no further payment from the City.
Dublin’s Wi-Fi system was successfully used at the 2007 Memorial Tournament for safety and security applications, and at last August’s Dublin Irish Festival to wirelessly scan tickets and process credit card transactions
Dublin's police and municipal workers also are using the dedicated bandwidth to access a number of innovative applications, such as real-time police video monitoring, high-speed data access for police cruisers, mobility for first responders and mobile field inspection.
For more information on subscribing to the service, residents may visit www.airwirz.net.
Dublin Goes Mobile With Cisco Outdoor Wireless Network
Cisco Systems®, the city of Dublin, Ohio, and DHB Networks, have announced that an innovative citywide wireless (Wi-Fi) network has been installed in the city’s metro core to improve public safety and drive economic development in the region. DHB Networks, an Ohio-based business offering wireless broadband and fiber Internet services to municipalities, businesses and residents, has selected Cisco to provide outdoor technology for the Wi-Fi deployment in Dublin.
Using Cisco’s mesh technology as the wireless infrastructure, DHB Networks has built an outdoor network and connected it into DubLink, Dublin’s existing fiber network system, which serves as the mesh network backhaul. Dublin’s police and municipal workers can use the dedicated wireless network bandwidth to access a number of innovative applications, such as real-time police video monitoring, high-speed data access for police cruisers, mobility for first responders and mobile field inspection. DHB Networks will offer wireless access services, under the Airwirz brand to local businesses and consumers. In addition, DHB will establish wholesale access agreements so that other Internet service providers (ISPs) can offer services and use the mesh network.
“This municipal wireless deployment will allow residents, businesses and city employees of Dublin to have mobile access to the Internet,” said Dublin Mayor Marilee Chinnici-Zuercher. “Our primary goals of this outdoor Wi-Fi network are to enhance public safety and improve the city’s operational efficiencies while also encouraging and creating growth opportunities for locally owned companies and residents.”
As part of the first phase of the wireless network rollout, DHB Networks will deploy Cisco Aironet® 1500 Series lightweight outdoor mesh access points which are attached to city buildings and streetlights to provide four square miles of coverage within the metro core. To reduce management costs and centralize network monitoring, DHB Networks is using Cisco 4400 Series Wireless LAN Controllers and the Cisco Wireless Control System. The initial deployment will be followed by a citywide extension of the wireless mesh network. Cisco 3200 Mobile Access Routers will be used to provide in-vehicle access for public safety applications, utilizing the mesh infrastructure for backhaul to city data centers.
Innovative Public Safety Demonstration
In conjunction with the city, Cisco and DHB Networks will host a wireless day on Oct. 16 in Dublin, where local communities in central Ohio will gather to see the mesh technology demonstrated and learn more about economic opportunities afforded by the mobile network. A series of innovative applications will be demonstrated including a public safety application that the city’s police department is implementing. In this particular application, a Cisco wireless mobile router was installed in the city’s Mobile Command Post (MCP), a state-of-the-art mobile communications vehicle that will have connectivity to the mesh network. The vehicle is deployable for special events and incident command situations to help ensure effective communications among first responders.
Using the Cisco mobile access router located in the MCP, Cisco and DHB Networks have enabled the city to wirelessly transmit video from surveillance cameras, operate a multi-station voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone network, utilize computer-aided dispatch and mapping software, and utilize mobile IP phones in and around the MPC using the mesh network.
“We selected Cisco’s wireless technology for the Dublin network because it will deliver performance and reliability while being highly scalable and easy to deploy,” said David Haimbaugh, principal of DHB Networks. “The solution uses well-established standards and offers a substantially reduced risk, cost and time to market.”
“The city of Dublin is a progressive community that exemplifies municipal Wi-Fi innovation,” said Alan Cohen, senior director of mobility solutions for Cisco Systems. “Cisco’s wireless networking technology continues to enable municipalities to build innovative mobile applications, while also providing additional tools for economic development.”