City Council Approves JPL’s 10-Year Extension on Fiber Optic Network Lease

The City Council has approved the 10-year extension of Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)’s use of the city’s fiber optic network, expected to generate the city up to $1,778,581.

The Council’s meeting Monday agreed to consolidate JPL’s three existing contracts into a single license agreement with two five-year terms.

The first five-year term is expected to generate $714,009 to $894,184 in revenue from annual license fees and one-time catch-up fees. KPL’s optional second five-year term renewal will have a 3.5 percent increase in the annual fees, expected to generate $697,916 to $884,397.

“The agreement supports the City Council Strategic Goal to “maintain fiscal responsibility and stability” by generating revenue that will facilitate ongoing operation of the fiber optic network as a self sustaining activity, according to a report prepared by the Department of Information Technology.

Chief Information Officer Phillip Leclair of the I.T. Department said the city is encouraging “Pasadena commercial building owners and developers to install high speed broadband services through fiber optics to attract online, internet and technology companies to Pasadena.”

“These companies need high speed broadband services ranging from 100 megabytes to 10 gigabytes and beyond – which is tremendous leap from Business DSL service between five to 10 megabytes.”

The City installed a 25-mile fiber optic in the late 1990s to meet the city’s data communications need and to support Pasadena Water and Power system communication requirements. JPL has been using the City’s fiber optic network since 2003.

A map of the fiber network and connected (on-net) buildings around the City are available in http://cityofpasadena.net/DoIT/City_Fiber_Services/.