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Naperville preparing to meet future broadband needs

Decades ago, suburbs like Naperville re-examined their zoning codes and prepared rules that would govern the look and feel of a building boom of houses, parks, businesses and shopping centers.

The building boom isn't over and planning needs haven't gone away. But both have shifted.

"Now it's just with technology," Naperville spokeswoman Linda LaCloche said.

Building requests now relate to structures underground or on light poles, things like fiber-optic cables that carry powerful broadband internet signals or larger cellphone antennas that help carriers improve connectivity.

Naperville has received several such requests this year and has hired a consultant to help create a cohesive strategy to address them, said Jeff Anderson, director of information technology.

The goal is to determine how best to handle what Anderson described as a "gold rush of fiber-optic companies" hoping to tie in to the network the city already has. Naperville also aims to investigate the possibility of a citywide Wi-Fi network and to prepare for an influx of so-called smart devices that all must connect to the internet to function.

"Everything has the word 'smart' put in front of it now," Anderson said. "A lot of things are coming out here. We thought we need to look at our infrastructure and try to get out in front of it."

Magellan Advisors, based in Denver, is helping the city with its telecommunications planning process under an $89,000, five-month contract the city council approved in May.

As part of that process, officials are trying to survey all Naperville businesses about their current and future broadband needs. The Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce emailed the survey to members Thursday and the Naperville Development Partnership also is sending it out.

Anderson said the city is developing policies to manage its fiber infrastructure, which is the network of underground cables that carry high-speed internet to places like city and park district buildings and schools. The city hopes to write policies that will help streamline any future additions to the fiber network by coordinating projects so underground digging won't be duplicated.

Cellphone antennas or towers are another important element of telecommunications development that need their own version of zoning rules, Anderson said. If the city isn't careful, cellphone carriers could request to place large antennas on light poles that could be much more noticeable than the antennas posted now, which largely avoid public detection.

What the city needs is "solutions that are elegant" visually, Anderson said.

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