Lexington, KY – Mayor Jim Gray’s administration is looking to throttle up Lexington’s web speeds and join the likes of Kansas City, Austin and Chattanooga as Gigabit Cities, cities with Internet speeds of 1,000 megabits per second (Mbps).
Lexington Chief Information Officer Aldona Valicenti told the Planning and Public Works Committee of Lexington’s Urban County Council Tuesday about the city’s early plans to vastly improve the city’s speeds, which she said can also revolutionize the business climate and citizen access.
“It’s for technology companies, it’s for education, it’s pretty much for just about everything. Manufacturing, you look at manufacturing today and it’s ‘just in time,’” Valicenti said about just in time model for many manufacturers that have deliveries for production delivered as needed rather than storing supplies in a warehouse. Companies require ever increasing broadband speeds to keep up with those practices.
Valicenti told the council committee a Fiber Team has formed in city hall with representatives from every department to move toward a Request for Information (RFI) that would likely lead to a Request for Proposals (RFP) to upgrade the city’s fiber optic infrastructure.
Cities like Kansas City and Austin have been largely supported in their effort by Google while Chattanooga spent $300 million to build its own network.
“Lexington is well positioned to take advantage of this bandwidth because it is a University City, with extraordinarily high levels of educated talent and entrepreneurship,” Mayor Gray stated in a release from his office about the initiative.
Currently the fastest speed available to residential customers in Lexington is 50 Mbps, while the city reports a national average 10.5 Mbps.
Lexington Internet providers Windstream and Time Warner Cable offer speeds ranging from 2 Mbps to 50. Windstream offers two packages, one at 3 Mbps and another at 24 Mbps. Time Warner Cable has six offerings with their “Standard Package” at 15 Mbps.
According to a release from the mayor, those attempting to download an HD movie at the national average of 10.5 Mbps can do so in 24 minutes. With a gigabit, users could achieve the same feat in 33 seconds. Though it is not likely a resident would require that kind of speed any time soon, according to Scott Shapiro, a senior aide to the mayor.
“Not everyone wants or needs that speed, but it needs to be available,” Shapiro said via text message. “The floor on what households need keeps shifting each year. Last year it was 10 Mbps, now the floor seems to be 25 Mbps. (The) FCC wants 100 Mbps by 2020. We need to lay the fiber so that we can accommodate this ever-upward need for bandwidth.”
The mayor, in his release, states the city will look for businesses to provide what it known as the final mile fiber, which goes directly into customers’ homes and offices. The RFI is expected to be released in the next six months.
“We’re going to be looking for partners who can create competition and who are willing to serve neighborhoods throughout Lexington,” Gray said. “Increasing our Internet speeds is crucial, but so is tackling the digital divide.”
Currently, the mayor’s office reports according to Internet metrics company Ookla, Lexington comes in at the 38th fastest city in the state with an average speed of 16.2 Mbps.
“Think of where Lexington would be without I-64 and I-75,” Gray said in his statement. “That’s what we face if Lexington is not in the fast lane of the information super highway.”