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Non-Profit to Run Boston Wi-Fi?
isabotage3 writes to tell us that Boston, MA is toying with a somewhat unique approach to their version of the city-wide low-cost wireless network. Rather than put the network in the hands of a private organization under contract the city may allow a non-profit group to run the show. From the article: "Although Boston's strategy depends on the willingness of foundations and businesses to come forward with cash donations, officials believe having an existing or newly formed nonprofit in charge is the best way to ensure the project meets its civic goals and steers clear of special interests."
Someday all these cities are going to realize that wireless (b/g at least) was never ever designed to be deployed on such a scale and, really, works so pathetically horrible that I feel sorry for anyone using it.
10-1 in about a decade we'll here stories about how these things were fraught with corruption, never worked right, waste of taxpayer money, etc, etc.
Voice of experience.. I spent years at an ISP that tried to sell wireless and man, it just never ever works right for this type of thing (others in the industry will probably confirm this) without spending a whole lot of cash.
If the City of Boston holds any strings whatsoever to the contact, it will surely be a union-driven morass of special kickbacks, perks, and hidden slush funds. They'll be lucky to provide 2400 baud links to a few hundred simultaneous users, after pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars in it.
What's in it for business?
While it is nice to think that businesses will just donate the money to the project, 99% of businesses want to know what the benefit to their bottom line is. There is an incentive to businesses to provide local wireless, as it draws people to their location. There is also incentive if they get some public recognition - think advertising. Yes, some do it for "goodwill" but I don't see that being as big a factor in a city like Boston, (as opposed to a smaller town), where there are a lot of businesses competing for the same goodwill. That means businesses are going to want to run their ads in return for their donations, making for an annoying wireless environment.
I think it would have been a great idea 7 years ago where companies were spending money on anything to do with tech, but I think will fail in today's economic climate.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
The best example is the city of Lausanne, Olympic Capital. There are many Wi-Fi access point at each main squares. The provider is SIL service multimédia, a department of the Industrial Services (belonging to the city) which is clearly non-profit organization.
So, there is definitely no revolution!
More infos:
"Un mathématicien est une machine qui transforme le café en théorème." P. Erdos
I know this sounds like a great idea, but I'm skeptical. Would the government have an easier time monitoring, or pulling the strings to monitor, such a network than a for-profit one?
The buildout will cost millions, all be obsolete by 2010, (http://www.wimaxforum.org/home/) and even with just 1.5mb/256k pipes, wireless does not scale well to more than a couple hundred users at best per cell site. The non-profit will be able to get cheaper pipes, and wholesale the bandwidth... but at that point, you may as well get a larger interest in there because then at least the build-out is paid for. A non-profit will not account for the budget of competent wifi engineers and technicians, which is a lot different than normal traditional network engineers and technicians. The skillset is more small-scale embedded systems configuration and administration than rip/ospf on big beefy routers. Because the field has only been around for a few years, most of the smart people have already been snapped up by these 'interests' TFA references. There are several reasons non-profits are not fit for the task: Wifi is more labor-intensive than traditional ISPs in the sense of field personnel, for installations and service calls. Much of the equipment is prone to failure, and normally is hanging 60' or so in the air. Weather like Boston has is absolutely murder on the equipment. Stuff freezes, water gets in the fittings, the antennas corrode... Maintenance most likely is not as large a provision in a small donation-only budget. The total amount of bandwidth utilized is not the greatest problem, so much as the harmonization of the spectrum caused by everybody using the access points. Also, the small embedded boards can only pass so many packets through so many interfaces before they choke up. Because of this scalability problem with wireless, it's just hard to make profitable. The delicate balance of bandwidth vs cpu/ram vs spectrum is very hard to maintain. If they are intending on it being free or low-cost, this only exacerbates the problem... because now the non-profit would be taking a hit where the independant provider would be in the black. They should do it like Sacramento wireless, actually making it like a city utility like water or trash, but outsourcing all of it. There is more profit for the independant operator AND the municipality that way. Bottom line, the consumers best interests would assuredly be best served by a larger corporation with a few muni networks under it's belt fulfilling the contract vs a non-profit.
Maybe.
But there are lots of foundations and philanthropists out there with lots of money, and all you really need is one. I've worked in the non-profit sector. The good news is that people with money understand using money to catalyze change: that's what investment is after all. In fact, that's the difference between asking for a small donation and a large one. You can ask for a small thing because it will help you get something worthy done. You can ask for a large thing if will change the way things get done.
By their nature these sort of asks are unique animals. You need to research the donor, understand the foundation's mission or the donor's interests, and connect what you want to do to those things in a persuasive way. Only after you have done those things can you say whether the funding is likely or even possible.
With respect to business, consider all the businesses that provide wi-fi access. Why do they do it? To attract customers from their competition. So, these businesses are going to be either against the effort, or indifferent to it.
But the principle remains: a business may be interested in this because it attracts customers away from the competition. Except that the service would be for everyone in the city. So you need a business that is interested in the city vis a vis other cities.
You want a real estate business.
If this goes down, the most plausible way to do it will be to find some developer who has a mega-project that, as such projects do, requires a boatload of zoning variances. Normally you sit down and dicker with them over things like setting aside jobs for city residences, putting in amenities to offset problems, and, this is key, paying for improvements nearby infrastructure. Most of these things are the stuff the developer doesn't want to do, or is indifferent to. However, ubiquitous wireless may be, for some projects, a big plus.
Maybe you're putting in a development with room for a hundred stores and office space for a hundred businesses. The free infrastructure might save each store and business a hundred dollars a more in infrastruture costs. Thats 200 businesses x 100 dollars/month or 20,000 per month, nearly a quarter million per year. Using the prime rate, the present value of a quarter million per year is about a million dollars. So chipping in a million dollars is a break even proposition for you. If it's a condition of building your project, you could perhaps be persuaded to contribute more, and may be more creative in finding ways to leverage the infrastructure to make more money.
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