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Philadelphia Considers Free Citywide Wireless Access
The Associated Press is running an story about Philadelphia's city goverment seriously considering creating the world's largest hotspot.
"For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot....the city would likely offer the service either for free, or at costs far lower than the $35 to $60 a month charged by commercial providers"
That is quite brilliant and actually cheap. Think of it, the city could reduce costs in other areas such as, say water meter reading - instead of having guy go out with a scanner to each meter, it could transmit to the office when necessary. That alone would probably save a few million. Services could use spare bandwidth for other services such as easier deployment of traffic monitors, stoplight optimization, human control of high traffic stoplights during peak hours.
I know there is going to be many people that narrow mindedly say that the dollars could be spent on the poor or in some other avenue of no return. The city leaders have struck upon an idea that will actually revolve into a massive savings, data collection, data manipulation, data optimization threshold that will in turn benefit the entire population - it just wont be a direct "ME" benefit to everyone. I'm actually quite interested in seeing how this pans out.
Better tell the cops so they don't rough-up anyone with a laptop.
"I am not a number! I am a free man!"-- The Prisoner
What I'm thinking is, how will some health groups react? Adverse affects on health by wireless, especially in such large roll-out, are still not entirely proven harmless. No, I am not worried about health effects before all the flames come in, but there are some people/groups that tend to pay attention to this.
Philadelphia has been desperate to attract young profesionals to the city. This might work
"Phillidelphia City has been served a class action lawsuit by parents of the recent spurt of two-headed babies being born in the city. Scientists believe all the genetic anomolies are the result of the city's huge Wifi network and the microwave radiation it emits". ;-)
-psy
...security with something like this. Would you have to log in (even if it's free) so they can track you? I mean, if you go, open your laptop, get an IP and do evil things, how would they ever track your actions back to you? With your wired ISP account, there's at least SOME way to do that isn't there?
The only way you can improve technology is by getting the public sector involved in a defining leadership role. If you leave it to the corps, they'll keep you at the horse-and-buggy stage forever, just to keep robbing you blind.
Let's hope this signals a trend.
This is pretty thin on details but $10 million in infrastructure and $1.5/year to maintain seems awfully low for such a large coverage area. It's great that Philly has a mayor that is so technologically inclined. Perhaps when the conservatives start whining that there should be controls placed on the network to eliminate freedom of use (porn, etc) he might step in and kick it out?
I suppose that you get what you pay for when you are using a city-wide network (at ~$15) but shouldn't we be offering this without restriction on what you can visit?
At $10,000,000, that would be a nice contract to have.
What do you bet that someone with really good connections gets the contract?
Well it's not going to be free. Taxes will pay for it. Local I suspect, but depending on the Senators and Reps from PA, they might get some Federal monies for it, good old Pork as the people from states not getting the dough call it.
This could be a good thing. After all, pushing the technology envelope is great. Adding wireless sounds wonderful and geeky and technically enjoyable.
.02
What about the security aspects though?
And who will be in charge of the usage of the acounts, monitoring of traffic, etc. to make sure the l33t kids down on 14th street aren't trying to knock over the DOD or the Pentagon? Not to mention, keeping up all the wireless devices on security updates, and latest antivirus patterns to make sure it doesn't turn into a network of zombies that ensure a cyber terrorist attack?
just my
This is what Philly needs... Unfortunately the city is a bit stagnant in certain areas and always feeling overshadowed by Washington D.C. or New York City (for non-USians, those cities are about 2 hours away from each).
Knowing the history of Philadelphia, this will come out 5 years after Longhorn and/or Duke Nukem and cost $3.5 billion New World Dollars (the currency established in 2045).
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Okay, so that's Grand Haven, Philly... Any others?
One city at a time...
Considering the obvious insecurity of wireless, how will they keep the illegal downloading down? Almost anyone who knows what they're doing can easily spoof a MAC address and download questionable content and get away with it.
... once all necessary wire-tapping capabilities are installed, of course.
I work for the Philly government... and I haven't heard about this..
Actually, my department is going to be starting a pilot for the employees, now whether this will feed into the 'big one' or not stands to be seen.
The city's chief information officer, Dianah Neff, is quoted in the article:
[Emphasis added]
I have never seen a wirless dial up modem before, have you? I also hope they don't plan on using Blue Socket, out of personal experiences of a much smaller installation attempt.
On a side note, I don't think I want to sit on the front porch for too long in Philadelphia. That might be a big health risk! Shouldn't they fix those issues first, before they worry about being at the forfront of wirless access?
who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
Ah, Philadelphia, my home town. I went to attend one of the 80211-planet.com Wi-Fi shows there a few years ago. The conf was pretty small compared to all of the other shows I've been to. Thank goodness that's changed. We did quite a bit of wardriving, a snipplet of which you can see here. Since then, Wi-Fi coverage has exploded, which you can see here and for your area.
Of course, the pansy-assed white folks there can't cook, there are still a few places to get a decent meal.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
If publicly provided wifi is cheaper than commerically provided wifi, it is because the service is subsidized by increased taxation (or the redirection of tax funds from other uses).
There's nothing magical about the state - it cannot provide wifi somehow far more cheaply than it costs commerical providers. Indeed, the state strongly tends to be *far* less efficient than commerical providers because it has access to public funds and so doesn't have to worry about being efficient in the way a commerical company must.
Consequently, what is actually going on here is that the state has decided that everyone who pays tax is going to pay for those people who use wifi to have an expensive, inefficient service.
The service is *cheaper at the point of use* but it *actually* a lot more expensive because it is inefficiently provided, and you *will* pay, because the service is being paid for by the state, which is to say, through the level of taxation that exists.
However, because the state service is cheaper at point of use, it will wipe out the commercial market, who will not be able to compete.
The state will then be the only provider of wifi access. If, as is normally the case with state services, the quality service provided is poor, you no longer *have* anyone else to turn to.
Right now, if your wifi provider is awful, you change provider.
In the future, if the state provider is awful, not only is it awful AND expensive, you don't have a choice.
The state should NOT be involved in commercial enterprise.
--
Toby
Free broadband access means 70% of AMericans could watch video from any source at all. People could download video off of p2p networks, meaning that the high barrier to entry for getting a TV show or movie out to an audience would be changed to a lower barrier to entry. You would still have to have cameras (but they are getting reall cheap now) and actors and production sets. But the distribution system (tv stations, cable tv systems, movie theaters etc) has always been the obstacle to be overcome.
/i? sense: meaning that leftist ideas about raising the tax rates on the rich to former levels (e.g., 60% or more), and ideas about welfare for any poor person, and universal health care, these ideas are shunted aside.
But when anyone with a camera, free editing software, and some time and actors can make a movie, then upload it onto p2p, where it could be watched on free or very cheap p2p, that is going to mean that more leftist, liberal, progressive ideas are going to be propagated into American minds.
Right now, the mainstream media/Hollywood is liberal in the social sense (i.e., gay and minority rights, abortion, etc), but they are quite conservative in the economics
But free broadband would disrupt the media/entertainment distribution machine, thus allowing penetration for more liberal, leftist ideas.
I am all for it!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
The article says that they would use houndreds to thousands of wirless access points. Let's assume that they end up using 10,000 access points:
$10,000,000 / 10,000 access points = 1,000 $ / access point
Does it really cost $1000 for hardware and installation if you do it 10,000 times?
who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
Would they really allow full free access, or would they want to limit it to just port 80? I would think having full open access would just allow script kiddies to go nuts. Would there be any real harm if just port 80 were allowed? Would it be possible to use comprimised machines in Philly to DDOS if that was the only port allowed? Ok, enough questions, back to work.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise - William Shakespeare
Warning, hyperbole and stereotypes ahead!
So you are saying that none of the taxpayer's money should be spent on projects that actually benefit taxpayers? All of it should rightly go to crazy people that live in boxes and welfare leeches?
The chronically homeless and poverty stricken are generally the result of societal influences, and are not something that can be solved simply by throwing the city's budget at it.
I am sure there is a hefty portion of the budget already going towards various programs, but most of them are likely stopgap measures instead of education about birth control and financial planning, two of the largest (legal) hurdles faced by those below the poverty line.
It'll be interesting to see how Comcast reacts to this...comcast is a major precense in phildelphia (including its corporate headquarters)...they own 2 of the major sports teams (Flyers & 76ers), and they're one of the leading broadband providers in the area...this can't possibly make them happy...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
After all, you don't exactly dial when you call someone on the phone nowadays, do you?
When was the last time you saw, let alone used, a rotary dial phone? Outside film and television, the last time I saw or used one must have been close to 15 years ago.
In fact, I bet if you gave anyone under the age of 20 such a phone and told them to dial 911 (999, 112, or whatever) then they wouldn't have a clue how to do it.
Dialling, per se, is obsolete. However the language is still with us, and likely will be for a very long time.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I recently moved to a suburb of the Twin cities called Chaska, MN. Right when I moved they were rolling out their implementation of a town-wide wireless network. Their solution involved handing out wireless bridges to customers and sell service for $15 dollars a month.
Service was poor to nonexistant for the first three months. But as more residents bought in to the idea and turned on their bridges, access speeds and reliability greatly improved. Now its much faster than dial-up and I can even play a few games online.
Go Gusties
As long as you are inside the city limits, you should be ok. However, will they have to enclose Philadelphia in a Faraday's cage in order to prevent the signal from leaking across administrative boundaries, or cite the federal law against signal theft to anybody trespassing on urban WiFi spectrum in a nearby forest, especially after the city has closed for the night?
And I won't even discuss the legal ramifications of accidentally providing WiFi access across a state or national boundary...
If that's the case, I'm sure the Homeland Security Dept will enforce a cap of about 5bps ;)
Comcast will never let it happen. They have their corporate HQ here in Philadelphia, and are quite influential in the city. They will find a way to kill this initiative. Why am I so sure? Look at their past behavior:
They own some of the Philadelphia sports teams and refuse to sell the home game broadcast rights to satellite providers for any price-- so if you live in Philadelphia and want to see televised Flyers and Sixers home games you must have Comcast cable, period.
RCN tried to start offering cable TV, internet and phone service in Philadelphia a few years ago, and Comcast used their influence to throw up so many roadblocks, that RCN gave up and went away.
They do not, and will not, stand for something endangering their revenues on their home turf.
~Philly
> There are however a LOT of suburbs that are
> considered Philadelphia as well
No there aren't. The City of Philadelphia is very well defined. The "suburbs" (Delaware, Chester, Bucks, and Montgomery counties) obviously wouldn't be subject to this legislation because the City Council and John Street only have jurisdiction over the city itself. Now, whether they chose to apply it just to Center City is a different story, but there are no "suburbs that are considered Philadelphia." Either you live in the city or you don't, and if you don't, this doesn't apply to you.
Call me paranoid but this seems like just too easy to tap into and monitor traffic. Or access wifi webcams. Or hundreds of other ways to use/misuse this system to watch the sheep.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
A while back, a town in Missouri wanted to offer telecommunications as a public service. A bunch of lobbyists for the telecommunications industry perceived this as a threat and got the state legislature to pass a law forbidding any local government from offering telecommunications as a public service. The Missouri Municipal League sued claiming that federal law pre-empted the states from prohibiting the cities. The case was agued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was decided in favor of the state (and telecommunications industry). The case is "Nixon, Attorney General Of Missouri V. Missouri Municipal League Et Al." and a PDF of the decision can be found here At least 11 other states have similar laws to prevent local governments from "competing" with private telecommunications businesses.
The upshot is that if Verizon (or the industry generally) feels threatened, they will just buy some state legislators and pass a state law prohibiting it.
And anyone that knows Philadelphia Gas Works would never go near this. They offer terrible to non-existent customer service. If you get someone on the phone, they are surly and abusive. They refuse to collect on deadbeats and continuously raise rates on those who do pay to stay afloat. In bed with the corrupt city government (which is just as bad in the support area) so deeply that we can't get rid of them. Anything this city does (besides the center city district) turns to shit, and this will be no exception.
We are using a mesh technology that they say will guarantee 300k anywhere in the city. So far we have had some difficulties getting it working properly due to tree foliage and buildings. It feels like we have been putting the repeaters on every light pole!
Fredericton, New Brunswick has had this implemented since last autumn. Wireless G service is available for free throughout the entire downtown core courtesy of the city. They are slowly expanding the service area, too. I've used it on a friends notebook and it is blazingly fast.
University - a box of academia nuts.
I can tell you this, it will cost them a lot more than the initially $10 million. Is the city going to budget to maintain this service like they would water or other municipal utilities? I can tell you this, my water department are a bunch of idiots and I certainly would not want my city government running my internet access.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
First of all, I work in the convention business, providing Internet connectivity. Over the last 2 years, I have seen a rapid increase in interest to "provide wireless service". The problem of course, is that the ones who are asking are the CEOs and marketing droids that are just starting to discover this cool "Wi-Fi" stuff, and they want it.
Little do they know when everyone brings their own access point, all setup for channel 6, and they are all crammed into a convention center, no one is getting any real data transferred.
My work has become increasingly more frustrating dealing with these clueless people, who insist that they MUST have wireless connectivity. Is there any practical reason? Nope (except for the exhibitors who actually have wireless products and are show-casing their products).
Most of us know that there are 6 channels for 802.11b, but not everyone knows that the neighboring channels conflict with each other. This means if you put an AP on channel 10, the other on 11, they are still stepping on each other's feet and the noise level will probably prevent any user from getting on.
I hope this is a well-thought out plan, instead of a "it would be cool if we..." kind of rush.
Will this make it much easier for the government to monitor our email, VOIP, and IM? I think there are ISPs that only cooperate if there is a warrant to do so. What privacy will we have under this system if the city is more than happy to just cooperate with orgs like the FBI? Also, since this is a municipal service are we "virtually" give up our rights to privacy using it like walking out onto a public street?
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
I think it's been about two years since I've used one. Much less since I've seen one.
The eighteen-year-old sitting next to me knows how.
You would overlook roads, sewer mains, snow removal, garbage pickup, and a million other 'little details' that you already pay people to take care of for you. You aren't paying taxes so much as you are paying rent.
Private solutions may be the best solutions, but private monopolies arent. They are worse than public sector companies because they measure their bottom line by profit, not results. They won't invest in large-scale projects like this, otherwise they would have built the telephone infrastructure, the railroads, the streets, the sewer systems, and a myriad of other things that needed to get done.
Private solutions are working now, because we built the infrastructure, then gave it to them to make money on. When the infrastructure has to be replaced, these private companies are going to go tits-up, we'll pay for it in taxes, and then they'll come out of the woodwork to take over and make a buck.
I worked for the City of Philadelphia as a contractor for a year. I have no doubt that this is the pie in the sky dream that will not happen. There is no money, installation or support plan to this project/publicity stunt. They are so cash strapped it isn't even funny. The server room looks like something out of the early 70's. IT is just getting racks installed.
If I'm wrong and it does happen, look for the network to start failing immediately and having to take 6-8 weeks for something to get fixed and only after the appropriate bribes... I mean donations are received. Also look for the light post hubs to be missing soon after installation.
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
It's possible to live without the Internet, you will get about 3 maybe 4 days without water.
So while it can be argued that perhaps the Internet should be set up like a utility such as the phone infrastructure where the governement set it up and regulated it, comparing it to water is a little extreme.
Finkployd
Broadcasting & Cable Editorial about Comcast.
U: phelps123
P: 321joe
(Thanks to BugMeNot for the login credentials)
~Philly
Graduate 1: "Where should we take our Carnegie Mellon degrees and enjoy life as young prfessionals?"
Graduate 2: "San Francisco is nice. Lots of tech there. Great weather. Lots of tech in northern Virginia. Or maybe Austin?"
Graduate 1: "Philly! Let's be successful bachelors in Philly!"
Graduate 2: "Um, dude, Philly is dirty. Auto insurance rates are sky high. It's been voted as the fattest city in the country. Summers are hot and humid, winters are cold and crappy. Their sports teams can't ever seem to get to the big game. The people are a bit rude...they even throw snowballs at Santa Clause."
Graduate 1: "They have WiFi"
Graduate 2: "I'm there!"
The previous dialog has been provided as a reality check for bright-eyed and bushy-tailed graduates and professionals. WiFi will not increase the quality of life in a city and draw people to it.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
You wrote:
On the other hand, this would also give the aspiring Rush Limbaughs of the world the ability to get their message out there.
Fine. Problem is that when it comes to widespread mass media, there IS no TRUE liberal counterpart to Limbaugh. Air America? Please! That is just the Democratic party talking there, and the Democratic party aint leftist, at least not when it comes to economics.
You wrote:
But I don't think that the general public has any problem getting messages from either the left or the right at this point in time. Otherwise, why would so many be so polarized on many issues?
The public is getting messages from the Right (GOP) and the right-center (Democrats), but there IS NO Left in America. If there is a left, tell me where on the major tv channels we have people talking consistently about universal healthcare, about welfare for all poor people (not just welfare moms), about raising the top tax bracket rates back up above 60% (they are at 35% now for earned, and 15% for unearned); where are all the liberals talking in the mainstream media about taxing wealth; about cutting the military budget in half??? These are ALL things that are in place in all the other industrialized, Western countries. Why not here?
Poll after poll shows that 70% or more of Americans want universal, tax-funded healthcare. But where does the media talk about it?
There is no economic left in America; the media and the politicians are perfectly to define leftism as all about gay rights, and abortion and gun control, and all the other "acceptable" liberal issues.
But when most of the country is on broadband, I can promise you, *I* and others will be out there with our homebrew movies and documentaries on p2p--THEN there will be a leftist voice in America.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
I can only speak for me but I worked in their IT dept at city hall and down the block in the SEPTA building where the rest of the IT staff resides. That's the spread. I brought my own equipment to work with since the PCs were not able to handle what we had to do. Like I said the racks were coming in and there was an attempt at organization. The managers I spoke with knew it was old and were trying to bring the city up to speed but it is a slow process. To order in equipment took months. Getting it installed wasn't too bad but they aren't oozing with tech staff there. Getting the money was the biggest issue.
Now if you take that whole environment into consideration and theorized on the city's ability to setup something that big. You would come to a similar conclusion.
Of course in another thread regarding Comcast's position on the whole possibility I thought that Comcast might be in position to partner with the city to accomplish this. I don't see them doing this on their own even with a consultant company. Too much $$$. They were having issues meeting the payroll!
Stepping out of my pessimistic role, I would love to see this happen!
....... Thus ends my attempt at wit or whatever
or Vietnam, for that matter...
>Those third-world "sweatshop" workers chose what they're doing, because the alternative (subsistence farming) is worse. It sucks to be them, but without capitalism it would suck to be them even more.
Who gets to decide what the "alternatives" are? In this case, the power isn't in the hands of those making the "choice" but those who decide what the "choice" is.
>Starvation, you say? Sorry, but big bad capitalist agribusiness has boosted food production well beyond any levels that were even remotely conceivable 100 years ago. That's who's feeding the world these days.
Ahem, you mean government subsidized agribusiness. A business that, with government funding, is able to destroy any competition by artificially lowering prices. It's easy to win when you break the rules...
>Are you aware that farmers in the third world routinely go out of their way to buy GM seed on the black market, in spite of the bans imposed by corrupt local governments?
I'm aware of a lie in the form of a question when I see it.
>It's more productive. They want to grow more food, sell more food, eat more food, and have a better life -- the only people who object to them having a better life are kleptocrats in the third world, and affluent leftists in the first world.
I have yet to hear anyone, anywhere object to people having a better life, even if they secretly wish that it were so. I agree, they want to grow more food, but are run out of business by state subsidized US agribusiness. Thus leaving them the "choice" of working as wage slaves.
>The "global system" you're talking about is pure fantasy in any case.
I'm not sure you're talking about. I'm not sure what you think I've been reading, or what you think my ideas are.
>What you've got is a global non-system. People do as they damn well please (that's what you object to, right? Your fix is necessarily a centralized, dictatorial system).
I disagree, and I don't think you could prove this if you wanted to. As far as people doing what they please, I think that you must be living in a bubble if you think that people just do whatever they want. I don't think you can find a case of that anywhere. Even in relatively industrialized societies, choices are constrained by a number of factors. In less industrialized societies, choices are constrained to an even greater extent, with more choice given to those with more money, of course.
>Corrupt, kleptocratic third-world governments interfere with the growth of private businesses. They grant monopolies. They demand spectacular bribes and kickbacks. Government interference is harmful far more often than not. Look at the Pacific Rim. Compare Hong Kong and Taiwan to the PRC.
Compare Taiwan to any 3rd world country. They're doing extremely well, partially because they ignored the advice given to them by the US, which was to open their markets and avoid subsidizing them. Instead, they chose to subsidize their markets, and build them rationally, which is exactly how the US built their industry.
It really depends on what you are looking at. You can find corrupt governments, and then you can find responsive ones. You get rid of the corrupt ones and try to create ones that are accountable.
You are also conveniently ignoring the fact that part of the reason that these governments stifle their own private industries, is because there is intense pressure from multinational conglomerates to open up the borders to "trade". Part of the reason corrupt governments stay in power is because of US military industry. Brazil doesn't manufacture machine guns, or tanks, or helicopters, we do.
>And by the way, Stalinism didn't only "not work" for the millions shot or starved directly; it didn't work for anybody else either.
If you want to deny history you can. Their economy did very well until about the 1960's. If it hadn't produced anything, or wasn't able to keep up tec
I dunno--suppose an entire city were to buy their broadband access through them...those wireless access points have to connect to the Internet somehow, though some sort of provider.
Plus, the expensive and inconvenient hassles of tech support get offloaded on to the city.
~Idarubicin