NEWSLETTER ARTICLES
December 1, 2011Smart City Connects Southwest Indiana
Evansville’s newly announced Smart City initiative will move Southwest Indiana from the bottom tier listing of the National Broadband Map to the upper rung. Smart City will include energy, water, network infrastructure, and operational improvements; create City-wide fiber optic and wireless networks; add new employment; save millions of dollars; and dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions – without raising utility rates or taxes.
The primary core of the Smart City Initiative will be the implementation of a state-of-the-art, fully-automated meter reading (AMR) system for the City of Evansville’s water and sewer utility. The AMR system will include the replacement and automation of all water meters and the construction of a multi-service community communications network necessary to read the meters. This will enable the EWSU to bill and collect for actual usage and eliminate revenues lost by outmoded, inaccurate manually-read meters, primarily from large and/or industrial customers.
While the AMR system itself is significant, the non-utility applications made possible by the AMR system’s communications network is what will revolutionize the region’s telecommunication capacity - a fiber optic backbone and a wireless network.
The City of Evansville will utilize a 39.5 mile fiber optic (wired) network to connect multiple governmental locations and serve the City’s enterprise network, which supports data, voice and video systems along with being able to transmit large amounts of data from the field. Since the utility will own the fiber network, the City will be able to offer fiber optic connectivity as an economic development incentive to businesses interested in expanding or establishing operations downtown or in other targeted areas.
A wireless network covering the City’s approximately 40 square miles will also be established to collect data from the automated water meters and transmit it to the wired network for transmission to the EWSU’s data centers. The City will utilize a secure portion of this same wireless network for numerous public safety, public works and other municipal services. This will replace the current “end of life” public safety data radio system, eliminate the need to pay for hundreds of wireless air cards each year, and greatly expand the amount of data that can be transmitted to and from the field by police officers, firefighters, building inspectors, code enforcement officials, animal control officers, and other municipal officials.
Other potential applications include wireless video surveillance of City parks and recreational facilities, a METS safe transit initiative, and a municipal kiosk program for additional community services. In addition to the public safety and public works applications, the wireless network will also enable free open-air public access Wi-Fi for citizens and visitors throughout the City. The Free Wi-Fi is not intended to compete with services provided by commercial carriers. The signal strength will not be such that it can penetrate buildings in most parts of the City and the speeds will not be as fast as through commercial carriers. However, the City does intend to help bridge the digital divide by strengthening the signal in economically distressed parts of the City where residents will greatly benefit from Internet access but can often not afford the service.
