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Chicago Proposes MAN (Metropolitan Area Network)
stumble writes: "This article lacks many details, but the idea is that Chicago wants to bring broadband to the masses and is accepting proposals to design and build a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN): 'The project, called CivicNet, is aimed at bringing a broadband network with integrated data, voice and video capabilities to every nook and cranny of Chicago over the next 10 years.'"
The project, called CivicNet, is aimed at bringing a broadband network with integrated data, voice and video capabilities to every nook and cranny of Chicago over the next 10 years.
By which time, of course, the system will be hopelessly outdated, to the point where the last 40% of the people to receive it, who are not-so-coincidentally probably the ones who need it most, might as well not even have it.
OK, so maybe that's a tad bit cynical, but you get the point.
It hurts when I pee.
The city of Alameda, CA is in the process of building its own cable network with broadband internet service. It will be available throughout the city and will compete with AT&T.
It seems to me that broadband internet service is important enough to quality of life that it is proper for a city to ensure that it becomes as available, as cheap, and as reliable as possible.
umm infinite bandwidth???? ..
.. everyone in you'r neighborhood, or city, or however it would be divided up
uhh no
also you probably are assuming that coroporation can support EVERYONE doing about 50mbps traffic at peak times
- mescaline - its the only way to fly -
Speaking as a former long-term inhabitant of Chicago, with some inside knowledge of its politics, I put no stock in this until it's built out and accessible to every household and business. They've been talking about it for several years, as I recall.
The Daley political machine can talk big but moves sloooowwwwly.
The Metropolitan Planning Council has information about this project from the initial RFI's.
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Chicago already has many broadband options. Ameritech/SBC provides DSL (or another provider resells it), and there is a crazy company (RCN) that came through and re-wired thousands of buildings for their fiber to the telephone pole broadband/cable solution. AT&T "broadband" also might get around to providing data services to a meaningful population of it's Chicago subscribers sometime soon.
Most of these solutions do lack geographical reach. Good coverage is confined to the mostly affluent and gentrified portions of the city. I doubt even Ameritech, which already has a wire in most houses, has good DSL coverage in lower income areas, it just can't be a priority for them. This is where the city government can provide a much needed impetus. They can provide the motivation to provide a combination of services and locations that might be commercially marginal at best.
Of course the appearance of high speed internet cafes on the south side of Chicago might backfire on the liberal set, as they find that the locals they hoped to benefit are displaced by yuppies moving in to take advantage of all that cheap bandwidth.
-josh
It worked like this: a business with an existing Internet connection would be provided another one at a very low cost by the city. The city also provided interconnections to various local ISPs (Sprint, BBN, local ISPs). Then when the user dialed in to the local POPs in each location, each local business would be only 2 or 3 hops away. Interesting idea.
It failed. Turns out, local city businesses with the desire to operate large Internet business could care less about the access speeds of the communities in which they were located. They dispised the extra complexity the initiative forced upon them, even though part of their "backup line" costs were underwritten. And most of them felt that the government wasn't up to the task anyway. ("It took 4 months to repair the sidewalk in front of my house, and you want me to peer with you? Hah!")
The second part of the plan was to offer Internet access. But that plan was shot down by a multitude of ISPs that didn't want to compete with a city government that was intent on taxing them anyway. They went to court, and now the whole effort is a distant memory.
So although it sounds nice, having a city government -- many of whom collect sales taxes from ISPs -- competing against their tax base. Well, it never tends to work out to benefit the citizens in any meaningful way.
This isn't how a MAN works. In a MAN, the city operates the physical infrastructure but the networking is up to the customers entirely. It really is comparable to a road. The public pays for the road but they don't control where or when you travel.
I submitted this story about my home City, Kingston upon Hull in the UK, which announced similar project over a year ago.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsi
This system is already installed in 10,000 of the 30K homes in the City. Supports High Speed internet, Interactive Digital Television, Video on Demand, Council/Health and Educational Services.
More US bias from Slashdots ?
Of course, Springfield is alot smaller than Chicago, but, it is possible to provide internet access as an utility, and do it right. Just because CA utility companies have their collective heads up their asses, doesn't mean the rest of the world is like that. We trust our city government for clean safe water, which is a hell of a lot more important than checking email, give them the benefit of the doubt.