Begging your indulgence, this is gonna be a little long but it's history. So, if you are looking for the nutz and boltz, here it is.
Here in SF after the fall of the Earthlink/Google WiFi debacle with the Mayor against the entire professional tech community, citizens and city government, the city's IT department contacted a bunch of us for some pizza and cola over many meetings. They had no idea what to do next. This was exclusive of the Mayor as they knew he really doesn't get it.
Our proposal that was heard consistently over the course of the whole controversy was finally taken seriously after three years. The whole proposal was to expand the existing 40+ mile fiber ring in the city to fiber-to-the-premises.
Now that we had their ear, we gave them the salient solution; split the baby.
The Mayor started out with the right premise, close the digital divide and create digital inclusion. But, the Mayor wanted more. He wanted all the photo-ops, glitter with the big tech boys and the worldly promotion in preparation for a run for governor. He should have stuck with the original premise. Serving the people and not himself. Why?
In progressive SF (not the other half), it is well known there is a seriously marginalized population of the people. Those children and families who cannot afford Internet access, no less, computers for that matter. Getting these folks Internet access and resources is essential to equalize the disparity and inequality. Once done, then everyone will be at the same level. Then the city can move ahead all together at once towards better and wider access.
Also on a technical note, there was no way their WiFi-only plan was going to work which resulted in the demise of Earthlink's national efforts in many cities. San Francisco's topology and weather conditions does not make for good WiFi. Plus, with fiber having ben around for nearly two decades as a viable technology, the back-haul needs to be in fiber and not wireless. It's just plain science as radio and network professionals who make up the core of the citizen's representation in this effort for over three years have been hammering into public officials. The Mayor did everything possible to not have to have the word 'fiber' be uttered so as not to compete with his WiFi plans. But the stories about the city's fiber network is now very well publicized. You can read the basic information here. For more information contact me.
Our proposal was for the city to continue their efforts to bring hardware, software, training, technology centers and resources exclusive of Internet access to the underrepresented community which amounted to about 75,000 people in households a little less than half that number.
"So, let's start there," we said. Bring fiber to every low-income housing facility along the fiber ring and light-up (pun intended) the whole thing. Getting on-site hardware would be a contribution of local businesses and non-profits. Pretty cheap considering (about $3500 each location). Then move onto the next and the next location.
So far there are three major housing locations that now have or soon to get light-speed access and the rest are in the hopper.
Now, what does this all have to do with education. Everything! The second half of our proposal is to proliferate out to the rest of the city. The problem is that there are rights-of-way that the city has given away over the decades. These contracts are extensively for a very long time. So, there is no way to take them back without great cost and legal trouble. So, then what?
While the city has all the resources ready, the school district has none. They are still using expensive T-1's where the copper is getting quite worn down being nearly 100 years old. But, the school district is the largest property owner in the city with over 100 locations that could be used as fiber nodes that can be branched out to surrounding neighborhoods plus offer a solid WiFi hotspo
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Begging your indulgence, this is gonna be a little long but it's history. So, if you are looking for the nutz and boltz, here it is.
Here in SF after the fall of the Earthlink/Google WiFi debacle with the Mayor against the entire professional tech community, citizens and city government, the city's IT department contacted a bunch of us for some pizza and cola over many meetings. They had no idea what to do next. This was exclusive of the Mayor as they knew he really doesn't get it.
Our proposal that was heard consistently over the course of the whole controversy was finally taken seriously after three years. The whole proposal was to expand the existing 40+ mile fiber ring in the city to fiber-to-the-premises.
Now that we had their ear, we gave them the salient solution; split the baby.
The Mayor started out with the right premise, close the digital divide and create digital inclusion. But, the Mayor wanted more. He wanted all the photo-ops, glitter with the big tech boys and the worldly promotion in preparation for a run for governor. He should have stuck with the original premise. Serving the people and not himself. Why?
In progressive SF (not the other half), it is well known there is a seriously marginalized population of the people. Those children and families who cannot afford Internet access, no less, computers for that matter. Getting these folks Internet access and resources is essential to equalize the disparity and inequality. Once done, then everyone will be at the same level. Then the city can move ahead all together at once towards better and wider access.
Also on a technical note, there was no way their WiFi-only plan was going to work which resulted in the demise of Earthlink's national efforts in many cities. San Francisco's topology and weather conditions does not make for good WiFi. Plus, with fiber having ben around for nearly two decades as a viable technology, the back-haul needs to be in fiber and not wireless. It's just plain science as radio and network professionals who make up the core of the citizen's representation in this effort for over three years have been hammering into public officials. The Mayor did everything possible to not have to have the word 'fiber' be uttered so as not to compete with his WiFi plans. But the stories about the city's fiber network is now very well publicized. You can read the basic information here. For more information contact me.
Our proposal was for the city to continue their efforts to bring hardware, software, training, technology centers and resources exclusive of Internet access to the underrepresented community which amounted to about 75,000 people in households a little less than half that number.
"So, let's start there," we said. Bring fiber to every low-income housing facility along the fiber ring and light-up (pun intended) the whole thing. Getting on-site hardware would be a contribution of local businesses and non-profits. Pretty cheap considering (about $3500 each location). Then move onto the next and the next location.
So far there are three major housing locations that now have or soon to get light-speed access and the rest are in the hopper.
Now, what does this all have to do with education. Everything! The second half of our proposal is to proliferate out to the rest of the city. The problem is that there are rights-of-way that the city has given away over the decades. These contracts are extensively for a very long time. So, there is no way to take them back without great cost and legal trouble. So, then what?
While the city has all the resources ready, the school district has none. They are still using expensive T-1's where the copper is getting quite worn down being nearly 100 years old. But, the school district is the largest property owner in the city with over 100 locations that could be used as fiber nodes that can be branched out to surrounding neighborhoods plus offer a solid WiFi hotspo