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Philadelphia Considering Municipal Wi-Fi
sebFlyte writes "The row over Muni Wi-Fi continues as cities and other municipal authorities consider building massive Wi-Fi networks to give lots of people low-cost wireless net access. CNET is running an article written by the CIO for the city of Philadelphia, explaining why she thinks it's time to break the telcos de-facto monopoly and for public agencies to start offering public services." We have previous covered Taipei's efforts along these lines to create a for-pay service
People winging about how poor the service is.
Talkshow hosts berating the government for more give-aways of taxpayer dollars (sponsored by some telco)
Saturation and further complaints (my taxdollars pay for, won't stand for it, etc)
Ultimately it'll actually be pretty good service.
Why is this a good idea anyway? Look at the stranglehold Cable TV has on communities. (oh, sure you can go satellite, but it's still not price competitive because they're pricing to compete with near monopolies) If municipalities insisted cable could be laid under the condition a cable company will sell, at a reasonable price, bandwidth on their cable to competitors, would we be paying such huge prices?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I would prefer them to fix all of the potholes first...
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
I am OK with municipal utilities, I think it is inappropriate to make it free. If there is a need among the low-income, offer discounts or make it free for them on a need basis. Having your users pay by default would more likely pay for the setup.
I am no fan of the DSL / cable duopoly, but not giving them or other commercial interests a chance would be a disservice to tax payers due to the potential for waste and stifles competition from viable alternatives.
The ramifications of free wi-fi are greater than just web access... The upshot is of course, free telephone service as well.
This IMHO is where the real problems are going to begin. The telco's aren't just going to lose their internet business over this, they'd lose their businesses.
Not that we'd be sorry to see them go, but it should be acknowleged that we're talking about more than web browsing here.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I hope this gets deployed before Mayor Street gets indicted and sentenced.
I guess this is a "stunt" to try to lure people to Philly and fight the flight-rate that increases every year (especially among 20somethings), to the point where Phoenix is bigger than us. I guess no one considered that having to pay a local wage tax of over 4% has something to do with why people leave...
Take away the tax and give me a 4% wage increase and I can setup my own private Wi-Fi with plenty of loot to burn!
Competition is what is supposed to drive the prices down. If the prices are high, that no only indicates that the providers are looking for return of their investments into the infrastructure but it also indicates that there is not enough public demand for the technology itself. If the broad public would demand a cheaper service and actually use it, I am pretty sure it would exist. In Germany, wireless networks became a hype too, but in reality they are not used nearly as much as the providers expected.
Also, our laws prohibit the public administration to enter markets where already enough private companies compete against each other. After all, the government is not supposed to use tax money to drive private competition out of the market. Tax money may be used to install wireless where private companies see no chance for revenue. On the other hand that would lead to the question of whether there's enough demand at that certain location anyway.
Additionally, the authorities would face huge network administration duties that normal providers face.
Last but not least, you could argue that there are privacy concerns if the public offices run a city-wide wireless network (big brother is watching you surf).
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Is there any proof of this? Never in the history of the United States has the government done anything "low cost". Compare the true cost of shipping a package FedEx versus USPS.
It might cost less for the few hundred thousand subscribers who pay for it, but don't forget all the money taken from the people who don't use it, but who still get to pay for it.
A government granted telco monopoly is a bad thing, but a government run monopoly (amtrak, usps, etc) is worse.
And just imagine how great that customer service will be. It might reach DMV levels of greatness!
And I suppose we can trust the government to provide our network access and not snoop in on us.
Of course, if it does cost too much, has poor service, or impedes on your privacy, you can always switch to the competition...oh wait, they ran the competition under, because "for profit" has become evil.
The city itself shouldn't be talking about forming a monopoly, supporting a monopoly or operating a utility. Instead the city should be doing what it needs to do to facilitate the creation of city-wide mesh networks by private providers.
There are several impediments to the creation of city-wide wireless mesh networks. The first, and perhaps most important, is right of way. The second is cost.
A good model would include the city throwing out an RFP asking for proposals to create a city-wide mesh network that accomplishes the following:
- Covers at least X% of the city, where X is a large enough percentage to ensure that poor areas of the city are at least partially covered in mesh.
- Provides at least X mbps throughput to all users
- Allows independent providers to use the network to provide their own brand of wireless mesh services, for appropriate fees
In exchange, providers get:- The right to borrow money at favorable rates through the use of the city's credit. The city floats bonds, and then loans the money to the chosen provider(s) at the same interest rate as the bonds themselves
- Streamlined approval of right of way throughout the city, probably using the city's lamposts
- A temporary monopoly on some types of premium services on the network (i.e. the provider is forced to allow the rebranding of the regular tier of service, but a higher tier of service [twice as fast?] is the sole province of the provider for X years).
New York City has an interesting plan out there for better cell phone coverage under a similar model: offering right of way on the city's lamposts in exchange for certain guarantees. See New York Times coverage on the subject.Aside from the philosophical discussion on whether this SHOULD be done, I see two implimentation problems:
1) This is going to cause major interference with pre-existing wi-fi networks. I don't use of want my private network degraded by the ever-present WIFI service set up with repeaters throughout the city.
2) It's going to be VERY difficult to get people to be smart about use, and avoid giving out key personal information over the airwaves. Identity theieves already collects lots of information in Starbucks and ball fields. Can you imagine how bad the problem would be with access city-wide?
I post the same reply nearly every time it comes up. The local governments have no business getting into providing internet service let alone WIRELESS internet service.
I read what he had to say and I call BULLSHIT. It is the same politically correct crap they use all the time to slip more government programs. The routine is to use words like underserved, monopoly, and eventually "redlining". They claim that cable companies, telcos, and similar don't provide service to those who cannot afford it or will even use it yet at the same time they claim there is a need!
This is a vote buying scheme with little difference from how senior centers, libraries, and even police precincts are placed.
Here is what will happen. The contracts will be awarded to those companies who can show they adhere to some contrived quota system of workers. Being in philly this might require union workers, specific health benefits, living wage, or even political affliation. These types of companies are usually nothing more that shells held by friends of the mayor or similar placed people (see Atlanta airport for examples of a big city nepotism).
The contract gets awarded. It delivers inferior service requiring even more consultation by people who just happen to be friends of the same people who authorized it or screwed it up.
So eventually it mostly works. We then find out that most of the target people don't have the equipment to use it. So we buy it for them, to include pc and router from "approved companies". We then have to provide training for those who "did not win lifes lottery" of course by those who meet the nepotism requirements.
Then we stuff the administration of the whole shebang by favorites and such.
So we will end up with an overpriced solution that is staffed by people who have no business touching a net. We will pay to stuff pcs and equipment in homes where the people really won't get the true benefit.
I'd rather let a corporation do it, at least they can be held truly accountable. The government will just make your life miserable if you complain or such.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
The last time I checked I could also get Internet access from my cable TV company, independent dial-up providers, independent wireless providers. In fact, in my town of 26,000 we have approximately 10 ISPs that are not telephone companies.
Makes me wonder what the hell they're doing in Philly if my little town in Iowa has all of these options available and all of the companies are making profits.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
This service should be free, because it would be very expensive to charge fees, and require authentication to ensure that only fee-paying customers can use the network. I have seen (sorry, no citation) reports that more than half of the cost of running a long-distance phone company goes toward billing the customers! You have to keep track of who-called-who and when, then you have to collate and print bills, send them out, track payment (and non-payment), etc. Perhaps that is the reason for the popularity of the new all-you-can-eat plans (like mine from Verizon).
Wifi is a service that is difficult to bill for, and more difficult to use if authentication and billing are required. Treat the service like streetlights.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain