By Moses Leos II
The improvement of communication infrastructure across eight Kyle city facilities, including the Kyle Library, is on the horizon.
At a cost of roughly $262,000 over 60 months, city officials hope switching to a fiber optic line leads to improved internet and phone service.
“When you triple your workforce, and everyone is working off the same [internet] pipeline, you get congestion and traffic issues,” spokesperson Jerry Hendrix said. “That’s why we felt the need to upgrade — too many outages and people can’t do their jobs.”
The Kyle City Council unanimously approved the infrastructure improvements by a 6-0 vote on Nov. 5. They accepted a proposal from Time Warner Cable Business Class, which will connect all city office locations to a fiber-optic Elan network.
According to Hendrix, the city sought to replace its existing system “for some time.” It wasn’t until recently did the city have the financial means for the upgrade.
The funds for the communications infrastructure upgrade will come from the Information Technology Department budget, which is a part of the city’s general fund.
The annual cost for Kyle’s upgrade is slightly higher than what the city currently pays for services.
Kyle pays roughly $28,000 per year for its current services. The “ad hoc” system has three physical connections at City Hall, the library and the Kyle Police Department dispatch center. Three other facilities use wireless connections. Hendrix said some facilities operate on similar infrastructure found in many residences.
Kyle’s new fiber system would cost $2,000 more per year. It’s a more reliable system, according to Hendrix, with a 99.9 percent uptime, as guaranteed by Time Warner through a service level agreement (SLA). The fiber connection would run from city hall into all city facilities.
However, implementing the new service would call for $80,000 in construction costs.
Hendrix said the city is contributing a one-time total construction cost of just over $5,000. Time Warner will foot the rest of the bill.
Upgrading the systems stemmed from inconveniences experienced by city staff and the public.
According to Hendrix, one issue extends to the Kyle Library, which has 49 computers accessing the Internet. The dual access of computers and phones has led to slowdown.
“When the bandwith is full, sound from the phones gets garbled and the Internet slows,” Hendrix said.
Connectivity has also been a problem for some city facilities. Interruptions last as long as “a few seconds” to a few hours.
Bad weather has contributed to connectivity problems, as has distance. Hendrix said issues of slowdown are common at the Parks and Recreation building, which is located roughly 1.5 miles from city hall.
But the common issue is the increased amount of usage, primarily with the increased amount of data transfer among departments.
“Our bandwidth is saturated at this point,” Hendrix said.
With the improvements and the service agreement, Hendrix believes the city can alleviate the city’s connectivity problems.
“This system will give city facilities the same level of connectivity and improvise a stable platform for us to do our jobs and for citizens to reach us,” he said.
