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Applications for the BTOP's second and final round are due by March 15, 2010. In the second round the NTIA has adopted a"comprehensive communities" approach as its top priority in awarding infrastructure grants, focusing on middle mile broadband proj ects that connect key community anchor institutions — such as libraries, hospitals, community colleges, universities, and public safety institutions. As noted above, the City of Roseville manages an established technology partnership with metro area municipalities and service organizations including fire service districts and a watershed management district. Collectively the group is called Metro-INET to identify the transitive relationship that has developed amongst the participants of the network. Metro-INET is a communications network comprised of 67 public facilities located within 4 metro counties. Of these facilities, 39 are police and fire stations making Metro-INET one of the largest public safety networks in the State of Minnesota. Currently the agencies of Metro-INET rely almost exclusively on the use of the Comcast provided Institutional Network (INET) to provide the facility network interconnections necessary to cost share information technology services. But while the current INET is nearly all fiber based, it does not reach to all facilities within Metro-INET. Most of these unserved facilities are fire stations that are a critical component of the Metro-INET public safety network. The City (and the consortium group) has been approached by American Fiber Systems (AFS) to enter into a public/private partnership to build a fiber network that will replicate the I-Net. AFS is a privately held communications company that owns fiber optic networks in 9 metropolitan areas including St. Paul, MN. AFS owns over 76,000 fiber miles with aprimary business ofproviding dark fiber to telephone carriers and businesses. AFS also provides managed network services to businesses in the communities where they operate. The AFS — Saint Paul network extends between the downtown areas of St. Paul and into Minneapolis and provides services to businesses within this area. AFS seeks to expand their network and services to businesses in the north east metro area and is seeking federal funding through the BTOP grant to accomplish this goal. AFS was aware of the Metro-INET collaborative and is seeking our support of their application to the NTIA for consideration of a BTOP grant to construct a 100 mile fiber optic ring throughout the northeast metro area to serve business and our public safety institutions. AFS would serve as the grant applicant. Members of Metro-INET are asked to serve as public sponsors of the grant application and the public beneficiary by virtue of a grant to use the AFS Fiber network to interconnect the public safety facilities and other public buildings within our networking group. Additionally AFS will provide dark fiber capacity on the existing AFS fiber ring located in St. PauL In total, AFS is proposing to provide to Metro-INET access to 140 route miles of fiber. It should be noted that other agencies and institutions within the Twin Cities metropolitan area are also submitting grant applications to meet their unique needs. The City of St. Paul has partnered with Ramsey County to develop a community network to meet the operational needs of the City of St. Paul and Ramsey County. Anoka County is preparing an application as well. Some have suggested that the multiple applications be consolidated into a single application. However, the effective governance of an expansive public network may be daunting given that the number of public institutions in the region. As a result, agencies are encouraged to support the application that best meets the needs of their respective organizations and to additionally extend a letter of support to the other applications being submitted for our region. Page 2 of 5