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City data travels through the air in Billings
It’s not a city-wide Wi-Fi hot zone, but Billings has its own wireless system now. City facilities are communicating without wires, and the new system is working well, according to Jim Guy, information technology manager for Billings city government.
Last year, the city contracted with TransAria Inc., a Bozeman company, to set up the wireless system. The high-speed, point-to-point wireless network connects five sites: city hall, the public utilities (water) department, the operations center (solid waste, streets, traffic), the airport and the MET Transit/animal shelter facilities.
“Some of our locations did not have direct line of sight, so we set up relays on Sacrifice Cliff,” Guy said.
TransAria announced deployment of the system in November 2004.
“Right now, all of our data is traveling over the wireless system,” Guy said in April.
The installation allows the city to own its telecommunications infrastructure.
“The goal is to eliminate ongoing costs,” he said.
Billings has been leasing T1 lines from Qwest for voice and data. T1 is a special telephone circuit, Guy explained, a high-speed connection between two points. The Qwest connections are still in place as backups until the new system is proven reliable.
“Our plan is to eliminate a lot of those costs in the next couple of months,” Guy said. “Basically, we wanted to have a one-year trial period to make sure we don’t have any ongoing problems.”
The city is also getting higher performance. A T1 line will operate at 1.5 megabits per second, Guy said, and the new system is rated at 100 megabits per second. That speed helps the city move its data. Large spread sheets from MET and the airport and hefty new appli-cations that use geographic information systems no longer present a problem.
Technology & Communications By Dave Burgess
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