Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf Wi-Fi Project

The City of Santa Cruz was incorporated in 1866 and formed its current charter in 1948. It is governed under a Council/Manager form of government. A Mayor and six Council members set policy for the City and a City Manager serves as chief administrator of those policies. The City is located on the coast, 75 miles south of San Francisco on the northern edge of the Monterey Bay. Santa Cruz is the primary beach destination for the San Francisco Bay and Central Valley regions and it attracts over 4,000,000 global visitors annually; over half of whom visit the Wharf. The City is cultural and ethnic diverse, encompassing 15.8 square miles with roughly 65,000 residents. The Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf is the longest wooden ocean pier in the Western Hemisphere and lies atop the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, one of the most biologically diverse hot spots on the planet. In addition to its unparalleled natural beauty, Santa Cruz is a global tourist destination popular for its beaches, recreational opportunities including its distinctive skate and surf culture, music, historical landmarks, and open-minded community.

The City provides a full range of municipal services and facilities including the Santa Cruz Wharf, public golf course, over thirteen hundred acres of open space, full beach services, refuse management, law enforcement, fire protection, and water and wastewater utilities. The City is also host to University of California Santa Cruz, the Santa Cruz Harbor, and the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park, the largest beach side amusement park in California.

Project Scope

The City requests proposals from qualified firms for wireless network service and equipment to provide wireless high-speed internet access to the Santa Cruz Wharf and nearby beach area. A successful proposal(s) will provide minimum standard 802.11n Wi-Fi access to Wi-Fi devices around service nodes anticipated to include those shown in Attachment B. This network should be accessible to notebook computers, tablets, smartphones, outdoor cameras, and other devices, and should utilize a secured user portal or “splash” page to establish terms of use, secure user consent for location and demographic data collection, direct online traffic, and to promote important information, updates, and alerts.

Primary and desired coverage areas are defined in Attachment B. The City does not have service load estimates. The successful proposal will be able to provide users adequate bandwidth for system use under most conditions. The system must support roaming capabilities within the primary coverage areas and as much as the desired coverage areas as possible on a symmetrical 100-megabyte (MB) internet connection with expandable sizes acceptable for special events. Proposals should include estimates for the number of user connections per primary and desired coverage area, maintaining a preferred connection speed of at least 20 megabits per section (Mbps). Applicants are encouraged to present their best recommendation for speeds and capacity and/or highlight any flexibility to meet changing user loads, if available. For example purposes, special events like Woodies on the Wharf have historically attracted between 15,000-30,000 daily visitors, while average daily traffic during the peak summer months varies between an estimated 5,000-12,000 visitors a day.

Proposals shall include plans for hardware and software maintenance, support, including support availability, severity classifications and resolution times, administration and management of the Wi-Fi network. Management of the Wi-Fi includes software utilities to administer and manage user sessions, a portal page, and the ability to track and report anonymous user statistics. This data will be used to track system performance, provide metrics for system improvements, enhance marketing opportunities, and Wharf management activities.

In exchange for the above, the successful proposer(s) will be licensed to install broadband transmission equipment serving the proposer’s broader customer base from the Wharf and may benefit from possible co-branding opportunities with use of public Wi-Fi on the Wharf, subject to applicable permitting requirements, ordinances, and design guidelines.