The request for information, which Reneker expects to release around April 5, is a precursor to an RFP for project known as the Los Angeles Community Broadband Network (LACBN). The project envisions ultra-fast fiber connections to homes and businesses to drive economic development, and slower free wireless Internet access to help close the city’s digital divide.
Among other things, Reneker wants to gauge vendor interest in combining the LACBN project with a larger effort to privatize key pieces of city IT infrastructure, which could be worth $1 billion over the next 10 years. “We want to make sure that there’s a component that will entice someone to bid on [the LACBN project],” Reneker said in an interview at Government Technology’s Beyond the Beltway conference in late March.
The privatization initiative would target L.A.’s aging data center and data networks, and may include other related services, Reneker said.
“Those are our mission-critical areas, and they’re the pain points for our departments,” he said. “We’ll be going to our City Council in April or May to make some recommendations on privatizing certain services or maybe all of it collectively.”
Reneker talks more about the LACBN project in the accompanying video.
