NEW YORK CITY—“Ensuring optimal fiber connectivity is paramountat our HQ2 location. Please demonstrate the fiber connectivity onall submitted sites. Also, demonstrate multiple cellular phonecoverage maps to ensure optimal service.”

This paragraph in Amazon's Request for Proposals to build asecond headquarters somewhere in North America is light onspecifics, and may not be top of mind when considering what itwould take to reel in the enormous catch that aneight-million-square-foot headquarters facility would represent toa city's economy. Yet the world's largest online retailer had goodreason to specify telecom capacity in its RFP, and a city orregion's ability to meet that requirement certainly will be weighedalong with such factors as the pool of qualified employees.GlobeSt.com spoke with Arie Barendrecht, cofounder and CEO of NewYork City-based WiredScore, for his assessment. Part one of atwo-part interview follows below.