01 November 2007
Painesville, OH – The City of Painesville and Lake Erie College (LEC) have retained Beta Strategy Group (BSG) to design and implement the project which BSG has dubbed “Painesville MuniSync™.” The primary engineering and deployment focus of the Painesville project will be to light up the LEC campus with a wireless infrastructure and then to direct a signal towards downtown Painesville. This will broadband enable the majority of City buildings and eGovernment applications desired (such as meter reading, sensor detection, emergency vehicle location systems and video surveillance), while still improving campus life and interaction with the City at large. By working together, both the City and LEC will share the implementation and maintenance costs, resulting in a greatly reduced, over all communications infrastructure budget. Ultimately, through these costs savings, MuniSync™, as designed by Beta Strategy Group, will pay for itself.
The second phase of the deployment into the community will see strategically placed wireless hotspots, offering local users a secure, high speed internet access throughout various areas of the city. This phase will let residents and visitors surf the web or access email wherever a signal is available.
Due to the impending network implementation, the LEC Board agreed, on October 29, 2007, to also retain BSG to overhaul completely its existing technology infrastructure and create a modern network with large scale wireless access. The extent of the work will see the College’s technology upgraded with state-of-the-art equipment, and the campus becoming completely “wireless.” This will allow members of the network to access information, and their work, from anywhere on the college grounds and areas of the City where wireless ‘hotspots’ are set up. This new technology will see faster download speeds, increased reliability and security, along with a far greater capacity to accommodate additional students as the college grows its student body and faculties. In addition to this, the vast improvements in the college’s technology infrastructure will not only see their students able to work more efficiently, but also enable the faculty to deliver the resources of the internet to their students in real time.
As part of BSG’s work with The City of Painesville, it will create packaged incentives that communicate value added services and broadband availability to businesses based in the existing commercial parkways and vacant real estate. These packages will differentiate the area for would-be employers and for business start ups, and see the City of Painesville become truly a connected community.
When complete, due to the levels of connectivity and the cost sharing involved in the network, the network will help to attract new businesses into the area. Technology based companies who would need to establish such systems when locating their businesses, will find a state-of-the-art technology infrastructure ready and waiting for them in the City of Painesville.
BSG was chosen because of its design and implementation experience in community lead initiatives. Such experience includes projects to create wireless networks, such as the Mayfield Village wireless canopy, as well as networks in other regions of the country, including Broward County, Florida. The MuniSync™ program is an advanced technology offering and economic development strategy developed by Beta specifically for municipalities. The firm plans to announce a significant channel alliance in 2008 targeting municipalities and has several software patents now in development.