MOTOMESH taking root in the city

Residents in certain areas of Plano will soon see taller and more high-tech neighbors.

Crews have begun work on installing taller poles for use in the MOTOMESH wireless network. Plano officials said existing decorative poles did not reach the required 25- to 30-foot heights needed to accommodate the network. The poles have been strategically assigned to locations within the city right-of-way to provide a line-of-sight configuration for adequate system coverage.

David Stephens, director of technology services, said the crews are installing the poles in two pilot spots in east and west Plano. He said they focused first on spots with easy access to a power source.

“It will be done in a phased approached. The crews dig down about 5 feet for the poles and connect it up to the power sources,” Stephens said.

The planning stages for the project initially began in 2005. In 2007 the city approved a total cost of $20.5 million. When fully implemented, the MOTOMESH network will serve as a highly integrated mobile broadband technology system to aid public safety and city services.

Rick McDonald, spokesman for the Plano Police Department, said the network allows officers to transmit reports from the field. The Automated Field Reporting system now utilized by Plano police officers allows the report to be immediately transmitted from the patrol car in the field and entered into the system in a timely manner.

“The mesh also allows officers to obtain access to Web sites and online databases as needed to help perform their duties and allows them the access to the information without having to come to a secondary location such as the police station, city hall, etcetera.,” he said.

Stephens said that the network has moved past just being used by the city for public safety. With the proper infrastructure, the city has been able to incorporate automatic water meter reading, which provides more accuracy. He said they are able to do multiple meter readings instead of one at the end of the month, which allows them to detect leaks in the water system faster.

Also, with the network they were able to better monitor the parks and recreation department’s sprinkler system and help schedule watering times. Even the flashing lights for the street crossing signals have been set up on the network so they can change and monitor them.

“We are seeing some economies of scale that were not initially thought of with the initial design,” Stephens said.

Since installation began in 2007, Stephens said they are at 80- to 85-percent build-out. Initially, smaller hotspots were established such as at fire stations and libraries. This meant for a police officer or someone to use the network they had to drive to one of the designated locations to connect. Then they expanded the network to cover the major arterials through out the city.

“(The box) is not very intrusive,” Stephens said. The small silver box with two antennas coming out of the top and bottom was attached to existing structures in the area, like traffic lights and utility poles.

Now the project has built out so much that they are running into areas that don’t have the existing utility structures to allow the transmitters to properly communicate.

“We knew we were going to have some issues where the utilities are buried, but it was going to be hard to tell until we actually started,” Stephens said. “We allowed a factor for these areas in the planning and we are doing better than we thought we would.”

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