Agenda

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City Council Regular Meeting

Meeting Date:

04/28/2020

BACKGROUND

Educational Service Center Region 20 is one of 20 regional service centers established by the Texas State Legislature to provide services to schools within defined geographic regions. ESC-20, located in San Antonio, serves 127 independent school districts, charters, and private schools across 20 counties in the San Antonio region. It has an established history of providing technology services, including transport and Internet access to local school districts and charters utilizing the consortium model. In 2017, ESC-20 established the Fiber20 Consortium to create fiber rings to deliver high speed Internet service to more than 70 districts within its borders. The fiber rings use over 750 miles of existing “dark” fiber as well as approximately 557 miles of new fiber.

Early in 2019, the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC) asked if it could partner with ESC-20 and its Fiber20 Consortium. TSLAC paid for all the infrastructure construction and improvements required to add the public libraries located within ESC-20 to the consortium. TSLAC has also agreed to manage all associated e-rate grant reporting on behalf of the public libraries. Participating public libraries are only required to pay the monthly fee for high speed Internet service. The monthly rate is guaranteed by the consortium for 10 years in total. The agreement is for an initial one-year term with 9 additional one-year renewals. The fiber has already been installed along Schertz Parkway and Elbel Road in order to connect to SCUCISD buildings. The estimated time for connecting the Library to the network is May 2020, with a service turn-on date in mid-to-late July 2020.

GOAL

The Library's Internet service is heavily used by the public. The WiFi network alone averages about 30,000 connections per month. With Spectrum's 50 Mbps x 50 Mbps service, Internet service regularly slows down throughout the day, especially at peak service times. This slow-down provides a less than desirable user experience for customers trying to conduct personal business, work on projects, or complete educational assignments. The goal of joining the consortium is to provide a better user experience through higher download/upload speeds, while at the same time, reducing the costs of providing Internet service to the public at the Library.

COMMUNITY BENEFIT

The main benefit of participating in the consortium is the improvement of an important service to our community while reducing the long-term cost of providing the service, but there are several other benefits to participating in the Fiber20 Consortium:

It provides stability in pricing over a long period of time.
The speed of the connection is substantially better than our current download/upload speeds.
High-speed fiber networks are expensive to build. Participation in the Fiber20 consortium gives the City access to a fiber network without the construction and installation costs we would incur were we to do this on our own.
Maintenance of the fiber network is outsourced and incurs no cost to the City.
Grant reporting functions will be provided by TSLAC, eliminating our own labor costs associated with e-rate reporting.
The ILA provides an opportunity to collaborate with other local governments and organizations, leverage everyone's buying power, and take advantage of Federal grant money.

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDED ACTION

Staff recommends authorizing the Interlocal Agreement.

FISCAL IMPACT

Our current month-to-month Internet service through Spectrum only provides a 50 Mbps connection at $514.95 per month. The Fiber20 project will deliver a high speed Internet connection to the Schertz Public Library, providing speeds from 1 Gbps up to 10 Gbps, depending on our equipment capabilities, for $170.00 per month, a savings of $344.95 per month. The rate is locked in for the duration of the ILA, providing substantial savings to the City over the life of the ILA. There are no other costs to the City. Construction, operation and maintenance of the fiber network is the responsibility of the Fiber20 consortium.

The Library's current internal equipment and firewall will handle a 1 Gbps service connection, so there are no associated equipment costs. The Library has a technology plan and equipment replacement schedule in place. Over the life of the ILA, equipment will gradually be upgraded to take advantage of the full speed of the connection, but these upgrades will be planned for and are a part of the Library's normal equipment replacement schedule. IT has been included in discussions about the fiber network since the beginning of the project.

RECOMMENDATION

The City recommends Council approval of Resolution 20-R-38, authorizing the City to enter into an interlocal agreement with ESC Region 20 and the Fiber20 Consortium for the provision of high speed Internet service to the Schertz Public Library.

Attachments
Letter of Agency
Region 20 ILA
Resolution