Back in March, we communicated that our primary efforts were directed at understanding how much each of the potential solutions might cost. This required a lot of research and communications with our partners, discussing the most promising technology options and ways to come up with the most optimum solutions.

Fast forward to the end of May - not only do we have a better understanding of the particular projects' costs, but we moved past that into bringing our partners to Oceanside to discuss ways of working together on these projects. Notably:

Cell signal coverage improvement

Last week our team had a high visibility meeting in Oceanside with a consultant and a regional manager of a company that builds cell towers. The meeting was attended by the Tillamook County Commissioner Mary Bell and Tillamook County Director of Community Development Sarah Absher. 

We had a very open and productive dialog, with many questions asked and answered. It was very reassuring and effective to have representatives of our local Government ( Oceanside is governed by the County Board of Commissioners), land use and permitting office, a technology partner and Oceansiders in the same room sharing ideas and discussing ways of moving this forward, and to observe everyone working together and pushing in the same direction.   

After the meeting, the company representatives drove to visit 3 potential cell tower sites around Oceanside identified earlier in their research.

To address Oceansiders' concern "Are they planning to put a cell tower in front of my windows?!" - no. The sites considered are on the hills away from residences. View obscuration is a part of the company's due diligence/checklists in evaluating sites' suitability and has a big impact on site choice. For example, a possibility of a tower site at the top of the Maxwell Mountain Rd was removed from consideration precisely because of an "eye sore" quality, even though it could provide the best signal coverage for Oceanside.

Next step - the due diligence consultant will compile and present the report to the company management advising on site selection. This will take a few weeks. There is always a chance that the company might decide not to proceed with the project, but Oceanside has never been this far along with a project of bringing cell signal closer to our community. We are cautiously optimistic. 

Public Wi-Fi

Why are we even considering outdoor Wi-Fi for Oceanside while working on a project to bring better cell service to the area? Expediency. It takes a cell tower company 24 months to build and commission the tower under the best-case scenario. It takes weeks to deploy a Wi-Fi network, and it can be done gradually.

The main driver behind our specific Wi-Fi network architecture is public safety. When deployed, it will allow anyone with a smartphone to join a free public Wi-Fi, to call and receive calls (over Wi-Fi), to send and receive text messages, and to do basic web browsing.

We've been in very active discussions with Oregon Coast Wireless, a Tillamook company, about the possibility and challenges of building the network to cover Oceanside beach area and the lower Village - our tsunami inundation zone.

The proposed network might include around 20 outdoor Wi-Fi routers (see the image below). The company plans to install 1 or 2 to conduct a proof-of-concept demo with our team in the first half of June. We are excited and looking forward to this demo! 

We also would like to reassure Oceansiders the projects our team pursues do not cost Oceansiders a penny. There are no plans to bill Oceansiders for any of these through some special tax or assessment. None of the money donated to OAP (and thank you everyone who donated!) are going to these projects.

In summary, we are excited to see the projects moving along at a good pace. We hope you are excited too!