The City of Allen uses a mix of private fiber, microwave and leased lines to connect facilities to each other and to the internet for data and voice traffic. As the City's use of technology and the Cloud increases to better address the needs of our organization, the demands on the network infrastructure increase accordingly. Traffic video, bodycam video, increased VOIP services, and cloud-based applications such as Office 365 and Firehouse software all require increased network bandwidth to reliably operate.
While leased lines have been sufficient at most locations thus far, some City facilities are underserved by primary carriers. A higher speed microwave network has been installed and now provides additional bandwidth and failover capabilities to improve network resiliency. But, in order to create a backbone with a minimum of 1Gbps speeds to most current and future facilities, the City is best served with dedicated fiber. Pairing high-speed fiber with a backup microwave at our key facilities (such as fire stations) will give both excellent throughput and high resiliency.
In a cost analysis of the options to achieve the 1Gbps backbone minimum as a goal, the City reviewed historical and current costs to bore and lay private fiber, increase leased line speeds from local carriers where possible, and utilization of in-ground dark (unused) fiber services from a third party - Unite Private Networks in this case. In the analysis, the ability to lease dark fiber provided several advantages. First, a large capital outlay was not required. Second, the fiber is already in the ground near our City facilities, as the provider created the network in 2012 to serve Allen ISD. Third, the City is able to control both ends of a dedicated pair of private fiber devoted exclusively to our use, which both improves security and allows Allen to choose the speeds we run across the network. To begin, many of our locations will run at 1Gbps, but future increases to 10Gbps and beyond are controlled by City of Allen equipment and do not rely on the provider. This choice gives us a predictable cost, network privacy, and control; with reliance on the provider to maintain the physical infrastructure.
Future plans include adding connectivity to the future recreation center, CVB office at the convention center, and future fire station #6.
The current proposed sites connecting back to City Hall via dark fiber include:
- Allen Event Center
- Fire Station #4
- Fire Station #5
- Allen Senior Center
- The Courses at Watters Creek
- Prestige water tower