Silicon Valley Power and DAS Group Professionals agree to install new wireless technology around Convention Center, Great America, Levi’s Stadium
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — February 5, 2015 — Enhanced cell phone and wireless data services will become available to many businesses, workers, visitors and residents of the City of Santa Clara in early 2016 when a new outdoor distributed antenna system (oDAS) is installed in the city district north of Highway 101. The area, defined by California’s Great America theme park, the Santa Clara Convention Center and Levi’s Stadium, will be the first in Santa Clara to get the new technology due to an agreement between DAS Group Professionals (DGP) of Walnut Creek and Silicon Valley Power (SVP), the City of Santa Clara’s municipal electric utility.
SVP owns and operates the SVP Fiber Enterprise fiber optic network that will provide the backbone for the oDAS system, which is capable of future expansion citywide.
AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint and others will be able to leverage this system to provide their customers with quality service while not overloading wireless equipment due to crowds at conventions, Great America or Levi’s Stadium. DGP will build, maintain and operate the system as it currently does for Bay Area Rapid Transit and fans inside Levi’s Stadium.
“DAS Group Professionals has an excellent record for developing distributed antenna systems,” said John Roukema, Director of SVP. “They also presented the City with a positive financial model while providing a valuable benefit to our community.”
SVP and DGP agreed to share the initial cost of building the new antenna system. SVP expects to recover its outlay from DGP within two years of operation, after which DGP will continue to pay SVP for access to the city’s infrastructure and fiber optic network.
Taken together, the oDAS nodes and the existing SVP Fiber Enterprise fiber optic network will form a city-owned Wireless Service Provider (WSP) network that will benefit all users of participating carriers. The network also complements Santa Clara’s SVP MeterConnect® free outdoor Wi-Fi access service launched citywide in 2013.
(Photos available here.)
About Silicon Valley Power
Silicon Valley Power is the trademark adopted for use by the not-for-profit electric municipal utility of Santa Clara, CA serving residents and businesses for over 100 years. SVP provides power to more than 50,000 customers, including Applied Materials, Intel, Owens Corning, Yahoo! and NVIDIA at rates 15 to 45 percent below neighboring communities.
Contact:
Silicon Valley Power
Larry Owens, 408-615-6644
lowens (at)
svpower.com
or
City of Santa Clara
Sheila Tucker,
408-615-2218
or
Agency Contact:
Tom Mertens, 408-234-6881
Tom
(at) dystrick.com