CITY OF TUCSON
“ LTE MADE A LITTLE BIT MORE SENSE THAN WI-FI ... WHEN WE STARTED TO DO THE TESTING , WE WERE ABLE TO PUT UP 40 LTE SERVICE TOWERS AND COVER AROUND 40 SQUARE MILES ”
COLLIN BOYCE , CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER AT CITY OF TUCSON
you live in a desert , and your car breaks down , a cell phone is a lifeline and has more value to a family than internet connectivity . People were going without , so I felt that we should reach out and build a product to help our citizens .”
The City of Tucson is funded by sales tax , so it has to be careful with funding when it is deploying services . “ Our digital approach tends to differ from other cities as we take a private-sector approach ,” said Boyce .
Implementation of LTE The City of Tucson chose to use Long Term Evolution ( LTE ), which offers a highspeed , high-security wireless cellular network , for the rollout of their broadband network . The 4G will be expandable to 5G .
SNAPSHOT OF TUCSON , ARIZONA
Founded in 1775 , Tucson ( known as ‘ The Old Pueblo ’) is Arizona ’ s second-largest city , with a population of 540,000 . It is historically a college town that blends American Indian , Spanish , Mexican and Anglo traditions . It lies on a plain of the Sonoran Desert and is surrounded by Saguaro National Park and the Santa Catalina Mountains .
“ We initially talked about doing community Wi-Fi , and we pivoted to LTE and pulled in two providers — JMA [ Wireless ] and Insight — to help with the implementation of the product ,” said Boyce .
“ LTE made a little bit more sense than Wi-Fi which would have meant putting up 7,000 access points to cover 19 square miles . When we started to do the testing , we were able to put up 40 LTE service towers and cover around 40 square miles and discovered this would be around the same budget .
“ The first 5,000 endpoint devices focus on connecting teleworkers , students and those at highrisk for COVID-19 . Phase two involves deploying endpoints and network
mobile-magazine . com 127