According to a press release issued Thursday, blanketing Silicon Valley with a broadband wireless network is the goal of Smart Valley, an initiative of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network (JVSVN), the San Mateo county Telecommunications Authority (SAMCAT) and Intel, which hope to issue an RFP in April.
According to the release:
The Smart Valley initiative envisions a broadband canopy covering a 1,500 square mile area stretching from Fremont in the East Bay, south to Gilroy, over the hill to Santa Cruz, and up the Peninsula to San Mateo.
The Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force selected Intel to develop a Request for Proposal (RFP) because of its expertise with wireless data technologies. Intel Solution Services (ISS) has collaborated on successful RFP’s for similar projects for the City of Portland, as well as projects with the City of Tempe and Arizona State University. Intel Solution Services will provide a portion of its consulting services as an in-kind contribution…Intel has agreed not to respond to the RFP.
The RFP will be issued by SAMCAT, which represents 16 cities and the County of San Mateo. Smart Valley is also seeking financial contributions to develop the RFP from an additional 26 Silicon Valley cities and counties. County of Santa Clara as well as the cities of Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Menlo Park, Milpitas, Morgan Hill, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz - have already approved their contribution and are now participants in the project.
In November, JVSVN’s Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force, a group formed in early 2005 and comprised of CIO’s and economic development managers of the Valley’s cities and counties, released a document called “A Vision of a Wireless Silicon Valley.” The document is based largely on the results of a survey of cities “to assess the current state of wireless deployment and to get a sense of the goals and priorities affecting each cities wireless strategy.”
Mitch Shapiro at 2:36 PM|Comments(0)
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