The city, a suburb of Chicago, has been working with 3Com to create the Rolling Meadows metropolitan area network (RMMAN), and the company donated upwards of $1 million in equipment and services to the city to implement the RMMAN.
As part of the RMMAN, the city's official Web site has been transformed into a portal representing the various segments of local government. City residents can use the portal to sign-up for free email accounts, obtain information on public services and park district programs, download city forms such as building permits, vehicle registration and animal licenses and more.
"We wanted to see if we could do something that would differentiate us from our competitive base, which is other municipalities," said Thomas Menzel, mayor of Rolling Meadows.
The next phase of the portal, which officials expect to launch by the end of the year, will include electronic transactions with the various governmental organizations that are part of the MAN.
City officials met with elementary and secondary schools, park districts and libraries -- separate entities from the city -- to educate them on the benefits of becoming part of the RMMAN, Menzel said.
"We wanted to have a unity, a collaboration that we had not had before to get us all on the same superhighway so we could all grow together, not duplicate costs and activities and work together," he said. "It wasn't easy to put this together. It's a constant internal educational process, but it's like the train getting out of the station -- once the train gets out of the station, everybody wants to be on it because they see the value there. We had no ability to say, 'You're going to be a part of this.' It was our selling internally on the validity of the concept."
The network will be maintained by RMMAN, a not-for-profit, public/private organization created specifically to manage the project over the long run. Eswoosh, a local technology consulting and development company, served as the city's liaison with 3Com on the project, and is part of the governing board of the RMMAN.
In addition the company, technology leaders from local school districts, officials from the city, libraries, the Park District and the Chamber of Commerce make up the governing board.
The city covers approximately three miles from North to South, and all buildings that are part of the wireless MAN will be outfitted with its own wireless antenna, said Michael Broccolino, president of eswoosh. Two large towers at the North and South ends of the city will also help strengthen the signal, he said, adding that the MAN will use the 802.11b standard.
"The entities had collectively looked into fiber optics, but, at that time, the cost was prohibitive," he said, adding that city officials found that the potential cost of creating a wired network to link all of the buildings was approximately $3 million.
