Peachtree City municipal facilties will soon be receiving gigabit broadband service. The council on Feb. 18 unanimously approved a five-year lease with Newnan-based NuLink at a cost of $92,520 per year.
The council opted to go with NuLink, the lowest bidder for those services, in lieu of having the city establish its own fiber optic network.
City Manager Jon Rorie at a previous meeting on the broadband issue recommended that the council approve the NuLink proposal for 1.5 gigabit per second (gps) totaling $92,500 per year for five years. The cost for the city to establish its own broadband network would have been $437,000 per year.
Meetings with AT&T revealed that 1 gps or more of broadband would cost the city $1.7 million per year while that service with Comcast would cost $458,844 per year.
The city currently pays NuLink $44,000 per year for 100 mps (megabit per second) service and, under a previous pricing structure, would have paid NuLink $87,000 per year to go to 250 mps service.
The council on Feb. 18 also approved Cpak Technology Solutions for broadband equipment and installation needed for the broadband project.
The low bid for the equipment came from Cpak Technology Solutions in the amount of $209,178.
The only other bid received was from Presidio Networked Solutions at $229,862.
The equipment would be needed even if the city had gone its own way and established a city-owned broadband network, city staff said.
Financial Services Director Paul Salvatore in a Jan. 12 letter said the upgrade would be needed either way because the current network equipment is not capable of handling either the Internet speed or bandwidth levels needed for a high-speed fiber optic network.
The council also approved Cpak for the equipment installation at a cost of $53,500.
The previous estimate for the equipment and debt service was $365,000, or $73,000 over five years or at a cost of $40,000 per year if financed over seven years.
Funding for the project would come from the city’s Public Improvement Program (PIP) fund. PIP is part of the city’s general fund.
