Staff recommends that City Council approve the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Yellowstone County allowing them use of our existing city-owned fiber conduit.

Yellowstone County has recently purchased the Miller Building located at 2825 3rd Ave N.  The MOU agreement before you, provides Yellowstone County with the permission to utilize the City of Billings owned fiber conduit to extend their network services from the Yellowstone County Court House to the Miller Building.  The MOU sets clear expectations and roles for both the City of Billings and Yellowstone County.  Yellowstone County IT & City IT have shared resources in the past to benefit each of our organizations, to help lower overall costs, and to build a strong working relationship. 

In 2013, the city installed the conduit and fiber from City Hall to the Miller Building allowing us to serve our Planning Department for the past 10 years.  We have existing conduit outside of Yellowstone County that allows for easy routing of the county's fiber from their courthouse to the Miller Building.  We will continue to own the fiber conduit and utilize the available capacity for the redirection of existing fiber from our existing City Hall location to the new City Hall along with other future expansion of fiber services.

Allowing Yellowstone County to install 24 strands of fiber within our existing fiber conduit will not only save Yellowstone County money but allow the project to move forward without the delay of installing their own conduit.  Our existing conduit and fiber boxes have the capacity to handle the addition of their fiber without impacting current and foreseeable future fiber projects.  There are no associated costs to the City of Billings nor any known negative impacts to their project moving forward using our fiber conduit per the MOU.

City Council may:

• Approve; or,
• Not Approve

The MOU agreement has no impact on the City of Billings and/or the Information Technology budget.