Philly Broadband Clash Pits City Against Telcos
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Philadelphia officials have laid the groundwork to provide wireless, high-speed Internet access anywhere in the city, but their plan could be scotched under a state bill that could be signed into law on Tuesday.
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By Jeffrey Flanagan, The Kansas City Star, Mo.  Sep. 15--T he battle rages on between the NFL Network and Time Warner Cable, and the loser for now is clear: Any football junkie with Time Warner Cable.
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A Philadelphia model, if successful, could spark a movement to make broadband access affordable in every municipality.
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Legendary snafu Customers of Legend Communications have scuppered been by a series of mishaps at the hosting, VoIP and broadband provider this week.â¦
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For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world&#39;s largest wireless Internet hot spot.
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The long-promised battle between U.S.  cable and telephone companies has so far been more of an uneasy  peace. Thanks to their duopoly over broadband Internet access,  it may stay that way.
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VENICE -- The idea sounds good on paper: Build a mesh network of wireless Wi-Fi base stations and let users roam around an entire city instead of providing limited connectivity in a handful of hot spots. But will it work? The City of Philadelphia hopes so.
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By ALLEN, Sue  THE war of words between CallPlus and Telecom over thousands of lost broadband connections ramped up a notch yesterday, with CallPlus laying the blame at Telecom's door.
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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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San Diego becomes a battleground for 3G wireless broadband, as AT&#38;T Wireless debuts a service that competes with Verizon.
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By PULLAR-STRECKER Tom  WELLINGTON telcos CityLink and NZ Wireless are considering whether to put their hand up to build a huge Wi-Fi network in Auckland, but both are sceptical the initiative by Auckland City Council would have enough in it for them.
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MacCentral - The city of Philadelphia has reached an agreement with Verizon Communications Inc. that will let the municipal government deploy a citywide Wi-Fi network, but a carrier-backed bill that would let incumbent carriers block such projects has been signed into law by Pennsylvania's governor.
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City leaders don't need to be convinced of the benefits of high-bandwidth networks. Convincing them to pay for it is another matter.
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Cities and towns are jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon. But a municipal model of connectivity may be tricky to pull off.
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A fire in a manhole in downtown Philadelphia last night damaged telecommunications transmission lines and knocked out service to 50 of AT&T Inc.'s business customers, including Sovereign Bank.
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Big city's WLAN okay. Little towns not so lucky
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A year ago, it seemed like just about every major U.S. city was drawing up ambitious plans to build wireless Internet networks so more people, both rich and poor, could have online access wherever they wanted. Now, economics is blurring the Utopian vision as city leaders and the companies proposing to build the Wi-Fi networks haggle over whether the projects make financial sense.