The City of Lawrence, Kansas, owns a fiber optic cable network that it uses to provide for its telecommunications needs and to enhance the services it offers to its residents. In order to maximize efficiency within that fiber optic cable network, the City is committed to establishing a fiber optic ring and redundancies within that ring.
The installation of fiber infrastructure and fiber optic cable is most cost effective when it is completed in conjunction with street, utility, and other public infrastructure projects. The Governing Body finds that it is in the best interest of the City and the general public to establish certain policies regarding the installation of fiber infrastructure and fiber optic cable in conjunction with certain street, utility, and other public infrastructure projects. It is cost effective for the City — in that it avoids unnecessary and costly duplication of efforts — to cooperate with Community Anchor Institutions in the installation and use of fiber infrastructure and fiber optic cable.
The Governing Body finds that it is in the best interest of the City and the general public to establish certain policies regarding cooperation with Community Anchor Institutions for the installation and use of fiber infrastructure and fiber optic cable. Because it is cost-effective, the City customarily installs the maximum feasible amount of fiber optic cable within its fiber infrastructure and, as a result, has surplus dark fiber within its fiber optic cable network.
The Governing Body has heard from businesses and residents of the City complaining that there exist barriers limiting access to high-speed fiber-based internet services and a professional consultant, hired to examine the issue, has confirmed those complaints. In order to eliminate barriers limiting access to high-speed fiber-based internet services within the City and in order to enhance those internet services available to businesses and residents of the City, the Governing Body finds that it is in the best interest of the City and the general public to establish certain policies permitting the City, in certain circumstances, to lease surplus dark fiber within its fiber optic network, on a competitively-neutral basis, to the private sector.