By KATHERINE PETERSEN
The Sunnyvale City Council on Feb. 13 unanimously approved a telecommunications policy to establish its role in keeping up with the ever-changing technology and growing industry.
Mayor Robin Parker said that while many cities are struggling to determine what their roles, if any, might be, Sunnyvale has taken the initiative and decided it wants to be a player.
"The policy outlines goals that we will work toward," she said.
One of those goals, she said, is to provide all city residents with universal access to the information superhighway.
Parker said she would like to see the city's economic development department attract more businesses to Sunnyvale who work with hardware for Internet access or who are access providers.
"Sunnyvale is interested in a diverse economic base and this gives the department direction to be on the lookout," she said.
The city would do well to attract telecommunications firms, said one industry analyst. "It'd be a great boon to Sunnyvale because of the high base of knowledge of the people down here [in Silicon Valley]," said Joseph Fristensky, a telecommunications researcher for Frost & Sullivan in Mountain View.
Fristensky said that the worldwide telecommunications industry is worth tens of billions of dollars currently and is expected to grow "somewhere around 20 percent" during the next few years.
"The opportunities are im-mense," he said.
Parker added that she would like the see the city form partnerships with such businesses to pilot projects for a service or software, which could benefit the city, its residents and the company.
The city formed a partnership with TCI Cablevision for access to KSUN, a government channel on which the city broadcasts its council meetings.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, February 21, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.