Oral Interview Questions RFP 2005-19 1. The RFP stressed the importance of content, training and hardware in any integrated digital inclusion solution. Cities such as Philadelphia have demonstrated their commitment to this goal by creating "digital inclusion funds." What do you see as best practices regarding digital inclusion? How would your operation of the network promote/support those best practices? What specific financial or other tangible commitment is your organization proposing to address content, training and hardware? 2. Given the small number of large-scale deployments in cities with the population, density and terrain of San Francisco, please describe in detail the method(s) your organization used to estimate capital and operating expenses. Please describe any sensitivity analysis performed by your organization when estimating capital and operating expenses. Please be specific. 3. What support do you feel will be required for subscribers to self-provision basic service with an off-the-shelf CPE? What support will your organization provide should these users not be able to provision service? Will your organization be willing to provide a package for self-provisioning of basic services with custom documentation? 4. Please describe in detail the different CPE options that will be used with each service. Please be specific about equipment to be used, estimated prices paid by subscribers, the cost to the company, the relationship between the subscriber price and the cost to the company, as well as the details of the provisioning and fulfillment process, self-install vs. professional install. 5. Please describe the impact of increasing the speed of the free basic service tier on your organization’s business plan and the economic viability of the project. 6. The RFP requested proposers to compensate the City for the use of its assets and to state the forms and value of any such proposed compensation. Please provide as much additional detail as possible regarding these possible forms of compensation for use of mounting assets and access to the public right of way and their value. 7. Please describe in detail your organization’s expected product roadmap and upgrade path to the 802.11n standard. 8. Please describe in detail the trade-offs between a single and dual-radio WiFi mesh architecture.
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Oral Interview Questions RFP 2005-19 9. Please explain how your backhaul solution can be scaled and how it will be monitored to determine when additional capacity is needed. 10. The RFP states that consumers should be entitled to connect to their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network. How will mobile devices that may be unable to interpret the capture portal or unable to support the required authentication (e.g. a WI-Fi phone) access the network? 11. Please describe and provide examples of screens/interfaces that subscribers may experience for Basic and Premium Services. Please describe how your organization proposes to brand and/or co-brand these interfaces with the City and qualified Service Providers. 12. Please describe in more detail any opportunity to share infrastructure or deployment costs with a public safety network such as 4.9 GHz. What are the possible points of integration (access tier, backhaul tier, distribution tier)? What specific commitments will your organization make in this type of coordinated approach? 13. Several communities are actively engaged in similar wireless broadband projects. In which, if any, other communities is your organization considering building a wireless broadband system? At what stage is this participation, e.g., proposal, informal discussions, contract negotiation? Does your company have sufficient financial resources and staff, to accomplish multiple simultaneous builds in these different communities? 14. Please describe in detail the relationship among joint venture partners, collaborators or major vendors described in your proposal. 15. Please explain in detail how guaranteed/scheduled bandwidth and/or traffic prioritization will be managed between Basic, Premium, Municipal and Public Safety usage.
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