Shelby, a community of about 9,300 people located in north central Ohio, has recently released a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a Broadband Needs Assessment and Feasibility Study. The municipality is exploring new ways to improve local connectivity. Proposals are due December 20th.

Read the full RFP here.

Looking Ahead

Incumbents Spectrum Cable and CenturyLink offer services in the community, but as we've seen in other places, lack of affordability, slow speeds, and poor customer service encourage interest in publicly owned options. According to the RFP, Internet service provider Everstream owns fiber optic assets in Shelby and operates a fiber hub within a facility owned by the city. Everstream provides Internet access to the city and community leaders have approached Everstream about expanding the network to businesses and residents. Shelby wants to explore all possibilities, however, so decided to commission a feasibility study. From the RFP:

The City considers a modern digital infrastructure to be a critical component of a competitive city of the future and wishes to ensure that it is well positioned to meet the current and future needs of its residents, businesses and anchor institutions.

This project will result in the production of a Feasibility Study containing a residential needs assessment, business needs assessment, and deployment cost estimates. The desired outcome of this planning effort is to provide a tool for the City to establish if Shelby residents and businesses want this service, determine a successful deployment strategy and the associated cost to implement fiber to the premises (“FTTP”) within the City, and assess whether such project will be sufficiently supported by customer rates to justify the investment in this infrastructure.

Shelby is looking for a firm that will provide a feasibility study that includes:

Needs assessment: In addition to examining the current needs for residents and businesses, the consultants will develop projections of potential broadband services with Everstream or other service providers. The firm selected should examine regional efforts in addition to local options.