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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.'"
I hear that the Powers That Be are working on the successor to M.A.N., tentatively called W.O.M.A.N, or Wireless Omnipresent Metropolitan Area Network. One of the last known remaining bugs is a few days a month performance is a bit tempermental, to say the least.
I see this as the way the net is going to go. It's too much like the road and highway system rather than the electrical system or TV delivery system like cable or DSS
People go 'to and fro' on the internet and don't necessarily turn to one provider for the majority of the service like they do for other utilities. Sure you can use pay-routes to get online, (ISP's) just as you can use toll-roads and turnpikes. The most-used routes to get online will probably be supported via tax dollars in the near to medium future.
This has up and down sides. The up side is that public ownership of the internet will mean that it will be subject to more stringent quality controls and pricing regulation. The down-side is that any public resource is inevitably over-used and abused. It will also be more subject to content regulation if it's truly perceived as a 'community' resource.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
...except that the first time someone's kid gets routed to animalsex.com or some such, they're going to sue the city. So the city's going to have to install porn filters, and do age verification, and all the other crap that schools and libraries have to put up with in order to even offer desktop-based internet access, at which point it probably won't even be worthwhile.
Not to mention having to provide tech support for an entire metropolitan area...
Or the fact that the people that can afford computers or laptops with 802.11 cards can probably afford decent DSL access anyhow.
More power to 'em if they can pull it off, but there's reasons why Ricochet didn't do so well...
So.. if you create your own NAN (Neighborhood Area Network), are you sticking it to the MAN?
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
The Metropolitan Planning Council has information about this project from the initial RFI's.
The Economics of Website Security
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.
The problem with these 'Over a period of x years' projects is that by the time everyone has it, there'll be another 'next big thing' or people will be needing more bandwidth for hungry apps. 10 years ago, I was on like, 14.4kbps. If they installed some sort of hypothetical 14.4kbps dedicated line to everyone's home then it'd be sorely out of date by now. If they just did it within, say, a year or 2 but 10? Any reply on this would be good.
Mod me down, fine with me, it's my real karma I try to keep up.
check out www.smartcapital.ca for info on Ottawa's plans. I also hear that Toronto is considering something similar.
Imagine there were a municipal dark fiber network that every house and office building were connected to just like they are connected to the sewers and power grid! The home/business owner could then at their convenience connect a fiber optic router/hub and connect to whomever they like within the city/country! For instance, you could connect your fiber channel to one of the 2-5 ISPs in the city and pay for a gateway to the Internet, (probably capped to some reasonable bandwidth) or you could connect directly to your buddy's house or your other branch office at full speed!
You would be able to use 1 fiber strand, or 1 optical "channel", you could use the cheapest 10mbit fiber router or pay the big bucks for gigabit hardware! Or you could use several channels to connect to several different places at once, one 10mbit link to your ISP, one 1000mbit link to your branch office, and another 10mbit link to your home office!
it's a freaking GREAT idea!
I just wish it'd arrive sooner here in Ottawa!
I'm tired of "broad"-band, I want ethernet speeds to as much of the world as possible.