A proposal to engage Rocket Fiber to build an 18-mile fiber ring around the Grosse Pointes to be owned by a consortium of the municipalities, Grosse Pointe Public School System and the Grosse Pointe Public Library is on hold while the school district awaits acceptance of its e-rate application.

According to Marc Hudson, founder and CEO of Rocket Fiber, both the school district and library system are eligible for large subsidies for the project under the federally administered e-rate program, which supports high-speed connectivity for school districts and libraries nationwide.

Historically, the school district has used e-rate funding to purchase bandwidth from another provider, but worked with the Michigan Merit Network to conduct an analysis and subsequent request for proposal for the fiber ring due to the positive return on a long-term investment versus managing increasing costs from Comcast, the current provider.

According to Superintendent Gary Niehaus, Comcast’s costs increased from $225,000 in 2017-18 to $268,000 in 2018-19. This is the cost before the e-rate discount is applied.

“We knew we were going to wait till November to get the e-rate application accepted,” said Niehaus. “If it is, we’ll push forward.”

The City of Grosse Pointe, Grosse Pointe Park, the library and school system voted to join the consortium earlier this year contingent on other partners joining.

Grosse Pointe Shores unanimously rejected the plan July 17, on the recommendation of its finance committee. The Woods City Council tabled a vote on the proposal at the committee of the whole meeting July 2. The Farms city council agreed at a July 30 public work session to table the discussion for a future regular meeting.

The Board of Education approved the project based on eight consortium partners. If that number isn’t met, Niehaus said he will have to go back to the board with revised numbers. In the meantime, if the remaining municipalities decline to participate, “We may look for more partners,” Niehaus said. “The War Memorial, the (Grosse Pointe) Yacht Club — there are other people who have expressed interest. We said no until we gave the opportunity to our municipalities.”

The initial plan was to create a local government-owned fiber optic ring connecting all school, municipal and library buildings. Rocket Fiber also would install its own fiber ring at the same time with the idea of extending high-speed data services to area businesses and residents at some point in the future.

The consortium, made up of one representative from each of the partners, would manage the network, with the school system acting as the operating and fiscal agent, responsible for day-to-day operations. No additional staffing would be required, according to Niehaus. The ring would be built with the school system as lead, with each partner responsible for their own laterals, or the connections from the ring itself to their buildings.

The project would cost approximately $2 million, with the partners splitting the cost of the ring and paying for their own laterals — connections from the ring to locations the individual consortium members require. The ring would cost $900,000 with the balance coming from laterals.

Costs vary for each partner based on how many laterals they require. Total cost goes down with fewer partners in the consortium, resulting in fewer laterals, although the cost of the ring, split evenly among partners, would increase.

In return for this investment, GPPSS receives a major bandwidth upgrade, long-term price protection, 15 years of 10Gbps internet provided in-kind and 20 years of basic maintenance.

“There are no other fixed operational costs in the agreement,” Hudson said. “The decision regarding a 20-year agreement came from the average useful life of a fiber system.”

Hudson added 5G technology runs on fiber and is a complementary technology to fiber, requiring “large amounts of fiber to 5G radios to provide the high-capacity backhaul necessary for 5G service.”

In fact just last year, according to Hudson, Verizon announced a multibillion-dollar fiber procurement deal with Corning to power its 5G deployments.

“The Grosse Pointe School System has consistently shared that 2Gbps is the aggregate bandwidth currently available to them and that is frequently maxed out during the school day … (which has) restricted and affected critical school operations, including online testing,” Hudson wrote in an email, adding 10 Gbps is “the standard by which school districts of Grosse Pointe’s size are being connected in 2018.”

The municipalities see a positive or break-even return on investment on the current telecommunications spend with assumptions for minimal bandwidth increase needs in the future, according to Hudson. They also receive a “future-proofed fiber infrastructure for deploying applications like public WiFi, smart street controls, enhanced public safety/call boxes and a greater potential for 5G deployment.”

Meanwhile, residents will benefit from another internet service provider entering the market, potentially driving down costs and increasing the speed and quality of service available.

“The project’s at the point now where it’s hopefully going to move forward and the groundwork has been laid,” said Hudson, adding Rocket Fiber’s role is to work “with the consortium partners in communicating to their stakeholders the value of the project.”

Anthony Viola contributed to this article.