Philadelphia Considers Wireless Internet for All
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By DAVID B. CARUSO    PHILADELPHIA  -- For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot...
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For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot.
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Verizon's agreement with Philadelphia brings new life to the city's WiFi plans.
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Consumer groups and broadband vendors want more market competition for wireless spectrum.
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Wireless Philadelphia, a nonprofit group formed by the city of Philadelphia, has okayed a Wi-Fi test network, opening the door for Earthlink to complete a 135-square-mile network that covers the city.
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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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Meraki, a wireless-networking startup, announced plans on Friday to deploy a citywide wireless network that will provide free Internet access for every neighborhood in San Francisco.
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A proposed Pennsylvania law on its way to the governor's desk could pose a hurdle for Philadelphia's ambitious plan to provide broadband Wi-Fi service throughout the city by mid-2006.
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By The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson  Jun. 1--The idea of creating a low-cost wireless Internet network across  Tucson has great appeal, but we urge city leaders to make sure that the system  will, first and foremost, work well, and, secondly, be used by residents.
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Philadelphia has finished testing  its wireless Internet project, setting the stage for America&#39;s  biggest citywide Wi-Fi network that will also offer access to  low-income households, officials said on Thursday.
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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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Households in Newtown, Yardley and Doylestown will be among the first in the region to have access to new high-speed Internet services from Verizon.
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A long-time wireless expert talks about a topics ranging from 802.11n and municipal Wi-Fi to the future of wireless technology.
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Forget finding an Internet cafe. For less than what it costs to build a small library, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot.
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Microsoft Corp. has been doing some soul-searching about the future of municipal Wi-Fi for consumers. The company's market studies are finding end user woes, but also market potential.
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THE REGION Officials running Boston's wireless Internet program are expecting dozens of vendors, systems integrators, and service providers to respond by Friday to a request for information on how they could contribute to a citywide WiFi network, said Pam Reeve , chief executive of OpenAirBoston, the nonprofit corporation running the program. A pilot wireless program covering 1.1 square miles in ...
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Backers of a Philadelphia Wi-Fi project are worried that a bill going through the state legislature would spike a plan to blanket the city with free or inexpensive wireless access. [Broadband Blog]