Broadband Providers Monitor Philly's Plans To Offer Citywide Wi-Fi (Investor's Business Daily)
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Investor's Business Daily - With Philadelphia's recent proposal to install a citywide broadband wireless network, will there be brotherly love between the city and its broadband service providers?
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A prospective buyer says the early municipal Wi-Fi service could have thousands more subscribers.
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A local startup is selling technology to enable the average person to set up and manage their own WiFi wireless network. BeeTelecom Inc.
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The nation's largest municipal Wi-Fi cloud will blanket Philadelphia by the summer of 2006 &#151; with Internet access free in public parks and steeply discounted for low-income residents.
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What looks good in broadband news for Dec. 9.
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Municipalities that plan to use new Wi-Fi networks being built in their cities will likely drive future growth of the citywide Wi-Fi movement.
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Philadelphia will be able to go ahead with plans to set up a city-wide wireless, high-speed Internet network, but other Pennsylvania cities might not get that chance under a new state law.
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Verizon's agreement with Philadelphia brings new life to the city's WiFi plans.
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Philadelphia's plan to offer inexpensive wireless Internet as a municipal service &#151; the most ambitious yet by a major U.S. city &#151; has collided with commercial interests including the local phone company, Verizon Communications Inc.
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A startup says it can give subway riders wireless Internet access that's faster than most home broadband in the U.S.
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Investor's Business Daily - Wireless Internet startup Clearwire has a lot of work ahead before it threatens the broadband duopoly of cable TV and phone companies.
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Philadelphia will be able to go  ahead with plans to set up a city-wide wireless, high-speed  Internet network, but other Pennsylvania cities might not get  that chance under a new state law.
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Agreement with Verizon will allow deployment of a citywide wireless network.
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(InfoWorld) - Despite the tribulations of launching a regional wireless Internet network, some cities are making progress by sharing their hard-won lessons. Stung by criticism of high cost, flaky service and pandering to recreational Web surfers, cities can justify their investment in free wireless service by using the networks to support public safety radio traffic, attract new businesses and abolish the "digital divide" that can stop low-income workers from landing Internet-age jobs. That's the message from government technology workers gathered at the MuniWireless 2007 conference in Newton, Massachusetts. Ubiquitous wireless coverage could also improve residents' lives by offering automated traffic monitoring, parking enforcement and meter reading, they said. But sometimes even those goals fail to sustain public support when a network hits surprise hurdles, said Bill Oates, chief information officer for Boston. The city had been running its new Wi-Fi network for a month in the blocks surrounding city hall when citizens began to complain that the Internet service provider used a content filter that blocked certain Web sites. "We will keep hitting bumps in the road, we know that. But sometimes it makes you ask if it's WiMax versus Wi-Fi versus 'Why even try?'," Oates said Tuesday in a conference session. Cities can also face a challenge when the local historical society complains that wireless antennas can harm the architectural appearance of city buildings. City workers in Malden, Massachusetts, found a way around that problem by fitting a Wi-Fi antenna inside the storefront sign of a local bar. The business owner was happy to donate the location in exchange for a strong signal, and the new node boosted coverage in a heavily populated part of town, said Anthony Rodrigues, the city's director of information technology. That example illustrates that the politics of launching a wireless network can be a tougher challenge than the technology, Rodrigues said. It is fairly easy to link the networks in neighboring towns to share coverage areas or fire response, but much harder to persuade elected leaders to talk about funding the effort or agreeing who will control the network. The political hurdle applies far beyond the borders of New England, where the conference is taking place, said Esme Vos, the founder of MuniWireless.com , a blog and sponsor of the conference. Until recently, public wireless networks have existed only in major cities with large budgets, including Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston and Portland, Oregon, she said. But across the U.S., the number of municipalities with planned or deployed public broadband networks has risen from 122 in July 2005 to 385 in May 2007, according to MuniWireless. The downside of that success has been increased public scrutiny of the investment involved, and demands from some taxpayers that the networks should be financially self-sufficient. That pressure has pushed the industry to consider many new business models, borrowing ideas like the advertising embedded in text messages or commercials that play over cell phones, she said. Others have asked government regulators to force content providers to bundle free wireless access with existing cable television, phone service, wired Internet access, VOIP (voice over Internet Protocol) and IP television packages. However, Vos is passionate that governments should not insist that municipal Wi-Fi pay for itself, just as they don't require public utilities and paved highways to run at a profit. Governments throughout Europe already support public networks that way, not only in urban centers like Stockholm, Paris, Amsterdam and Milan, but throughout rural regions, she said. In the meantime, municipal technology leaders in the U.S. should continue to hone their skills at expanding coverage and supporting reliable service. "There have been a lot of negative stories in the press recently, saying 'these things don't work'," Vos said. "But people are learning from their mistakes. If you have to use 40 nodes instead of 20 nodes to cover the area, we can learn from that."ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
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(InfoWorld) - San Francisco city officials could bring the city'sÂ proposed Wi-Fi networkÂ closer to reality at two meetings this week as a key leader proposes significant changes to the plan. The network, to be run by EarthLink, has been closely watched because it is one of the biggest of many proposed municipal networks in the U.S. and because it would include a free service offered by Google. The city would sell EarthLink access to some of its streetlight poles and other locations for Wi-Fi access points. Some leaders and activists in the famously liberal city haveÂ slammed the dealÂ on issues including privacy and service and called for a network owned by the city. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors will reconsider an April decision by the city's Planning Department to exempt the network from an environmental review. The San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU) appealed the April ruling, saying the access points could cause health problems. The board could let the Planning Department's decision stand, strike it down or decide to study the issue further. On Wednesday, the Board's Budget and Finance committee will vote on the full Wi-Fi proposal. Unless the vote Tuesday requires an environmental review, the only remaining hurdle then would be a vote by the full board. The Budget and Finance panel will hear proposals by board President Aaron Peskin that may boost support for the politically troubled plan. Both the mayor's office and EarthLink are aware of the proposals, Peskin said in an e-mail interview. The mayor's office seems to approve of them, but Peskin doesn't know where EarthLink stands. Peskin's ideas affect aspects of the proposed contract that have drawn much of the fire. Key points include: - Increase the speed of the free service from 300Kbps to 500Kbps. (A service priced at about $20 per month would still deliver 1Mbps.) - Provide for user privacy on the free service. - Add an enforceable requirement that the network provide adequate service in all areas of the city. - Shorten the maximum term of the contract from 16 to eight years and let the city buy the network at full market value at that time. As it stands, the contract initially would be for four years and could be renewed three times, an eternity in the world of wireless technology. - Ensure the city is properly compensated for giving EarthLink access to its light poles. The city and EarthLink settled on the terms of a contract in January. It gave EarthLink the right to pull out if the plan wasn't approved by the Board within 180 days. That time has passed, according to EarthLink spokesman Jerry Grasso, but the company hasn't given up. The plan calls for building a two-square mile test network first before deploying the whole system. Â
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Investor's Business Daily - Ever wonder how they squeeze so much electronic wizardry into those tiny cellular flip phones?
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In September, the city of Philadelphia announced its plans to invest in a new wireless mesh network based on the current Wi-Fi 802.11b standard. By deploying Wi-Fi antennae on streetlights and other traffic control devices, city officials hope they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot, according to a press release on the city's website.