Q&A: Economic growth is goal of S.C.'s wireless network
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A South Carolina legislator says economic development is the primary reason behind a proposal for a statewide wireless network.
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Philadelphia may spread the joy of wireless Internet access to its citizens.
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Yet another communications-infrastructure player reports promising results.
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City-wide wi-fi networks are growing but how do councils and citizens get the most out of them?
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The biggest wireless service provider keeps getting bigger
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By Clint Swett, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.  Jun. 18--After more than a year of fits and starts, Sacramento is on the verge of approving a system that would blanket the city with free and paid wireless Internet coverage for both residents and visitors.
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Researchers at In-Stat/MDR reported this week that the Wi-Fi market has experienced five years of healthy growth since 802.11b emerged as the dominant wireless standard.
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Long-range wireless networking technology draws market interest as low-cost service.
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IT officials from three California cities detailed their experiences Monday with trying to set up municipal wireless networks, efforts that have yielded varying degrees of success.Speaking during the MuniWireless conference in Santa Clara, Calif., IT executives from Anaheim, San Francisco, and Los Angeles noted development plans for these networks, both for public services and to bridge the digital divide between those with Internet access and those without."Really, it?s been the applications that have been the driving force," said Robb McIntosh, information services manager for Anaheim.The city is in the process of building wireless links for public safety, public works, and other services. EDS runs the city's IT, McIntosh said. Meanwhile, Anaheim's citizen Wi-Fi network, intended for resident access to wireless capabilities, is 70 percent developed, McIntosh said.San Francisco's now-stalled efforts to build citywide wireless links were inspired by the digital divide, said Chris Vein, San Francisco CIO."[Bridging this divide] remains the driving force for us today," Vein said.Plans had called for a mesh network to cover all 49 square miles of the city. EarthLink was supposed to provide the system but that plan did not come to fruition. "Now, we're kind of stepping back, taking a big breath and looking at what we have to do next," Vein said.Anaheim's choice for paying for its citizen wireless network involves selling subscriptions. In San Francisco, payment options such as subscriptions or simply using taxpayer funds are still on the table."We're taking a look at everything," said Vein. "We haven't ruled anything out."Los Angeles also cited digital inclusion as its reason for seeking a wireless network, said Mark Wolf, assistant general manager for the city's Information Technology Agency.Wolf stressed the hurdles in having to provide wireless coverage to a city spanning 464 square miles and extending from the ocean to the mountains. Los Angeles has been doing Wi-Fi on a small basis and has been learning from cities such as Philadelphia and San Francisco. The plan is at a crossroads, Wolf said."It?s a good thing that it's at a crossroads and not cross hairs, in the sites of a gun," said Wolf.?Aside from the altruistic goal of digital inclusion, Los Angeles also is equipping its police force with sophisticated wireless equipment from Motorola. Video capabilities allow police to see a scene before arriving; other features include license plate-scanning, mobile digital cameras, and facial recognition systems.In other talks during Monday's general session at the conference, Padmarsee Warrior, CTO of Motorola, stressed that multiple wireless standards such as Wi-Fi and the newly approved WiMax standard will continue to coexist. While Wi-Fi is limited to covering hot spots, WiMax is good for covering large areas."The right kind of debate for the industry to have is what combination of these technologies provides true value to public safety, to governments, to municipalities, to consumers, to enterprise, to corporations, etc., as the world becomes mobile. And the world is becoming mobile," Warrior said.Speaker Esme Vos, co-founder of MuniWireless.com, emphasized applications for wireless. These included making wireless capabilities available on public transit so people can get their work done while commuting, traffic management, and energy management. Cities such as Riverside, Calif., Tuscon, Ariz., and Milpitas, Calif., are utilizing wireless to provide city services, she said.With cities doubling in size every five years but without the ability to double the number of municipal employees, cities are looking to leverage wireless, Vos said.
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(InfoWorld) - Silicon Valley's municipal wireless project is one of the most ambitious ever attempted, but good things take time -- more than proponents thought, in this case. Organizers signed a letter of intent with a group of vendors, including CiscoÂ and IBM, last year to build a 1,500-square-mile network. At the time, the group expected a rollout beginning in January or February of this year. The fact that not even a pair of test networks is on the ground yet is a testament to the scale and complexity of the plan, according to Seth Fearey, vice president and CEO of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, which is pushing the plan. If the system takes shape as planned, it will let travelers stay connected throughout a trip from San Francisco's southern city limits to Gilroy, south of San Jose. Wi-Fi may be just one of eight technologies used in the project. The high-tech region is reaching high while municipal wireless is going through a reality check. Last year, a vendor dropped out of a project in Sacramento after expressing concern over a free ad-supported economic model, and in April,Â EarthLink scaled back its municipal wireless activityÂ to focus on existing cities and major opportunities. A high-profile plan for nearby San Francisco is embroiled in a political fight because some leaders think it is a bad deal for the city. The Silicon Valley network would cover more than 40 municipalities across mountains, valleys and urban and suburban areas, with 2.4 million residents. The nonprofit Joint Venture group formed the Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force to spearhead the project, and last September it chose Silicon Valley Metro Connect to build and run it. Along with Cisco as equipment supplier and IBM as system integrator, Metro Connect includes high-tech nonprofit SeaKay and Azulstar. No tax dollars can be spent on the estimated $100 million project. Metro Connect envisions a "layer cake" ofÂ perhaps eight wireless technologies, according to Fearey. Details are still being worked out, but they may include the following: *Â Wi-Fi for central areas of cities *Â WiMax mobile broadband at 2.5GHz for less populated areas *Â a public-safety network at 4.9GHz *Â DSRC (Dedicated Short-Range Communications) for vehicle communications at 5.9GHz *Â systems for environmental sensors and machine-to-machine communications The task force is still negotiating with Metro Connect on a "model agreement" to form the basis of deals with each municipality or agency, which is almost finished, Fearey said. Sticking points include details of prices, terms of service, minimum coverage, and privacy, he said. "It's in their hands as to when we can get this going," Fearey said. Azulstar has been the lead negotiator for Metro Connect for four to six weeks since it was designated the network owner and operator, according to Noa Eisenberg, Azulstar's vice president of marketing. The parties have made a lot of progress in the past several weeks, and Azulstar expects a model agreement to be finished in the very near future, she said. Initial forecasts of deployment starting in February may have been overly optimistic, said Glenn Loo, CIO of Palo Alto, who sits on a committee with other city government representatives working on the project. Palo Alto will host one of the test networks where all the technologies will be tried out. Meeting the needs of the many entities involved and planning coverage across the region's terrain have been hard, he said. But Loo thinks the Palo Alto test network will be up before the end of July and the main network approved and deployed in some cities by year's end. One municipal wireless consultant sees more work and delays ahead unless backers change course. They should have tackled the project like a corporate IT department and started with a few key applications to build up momentum before adding other features, said Craig Settles, an independent consultant who has not worked with the Silicon Valley team. "Someone's got to be willing to say, 'We can achieve the vision, but maybe we should simplify the initial steps,'" Settles said. "You can't sell this much complexity to the average politician."
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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.
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Sprint (NYSE: FON) will spend US&#36;3 billion over the next three years to upgrade its U.S. wireless network, including the development of high-speed Internet services.
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By Gina Smith, The State, Columbia, S.C.  Feb.
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Depending on who's talking, the wireless spectrum auction that starts on Jan. 24 will significantly change the mobile and wireless landscape in the U.S., or it won't have much impact at all.Some believe it will lead to creation of new nationwide wireless networks and the entry of new wireless operators. That increased competition could benefit users."This spectrum auction is the first real chance we've had to see a competitor emerge that could compete with the telephone and cable companies," said Gigi Sohn, president of the Public Knowledge consumer rights organization. Aggressive bidding is expected from several well-funded companies that aren't currently in the wireless business, such as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Spectrum and Google.Others, however, beg to differ. "The auction won't change anything per se," said Jack Gold, principal of J. Gold Associates, a telecommunications consulting firm. "But other pressures in the system -- market forces -- could ultimately change a lot of things." For example, Gold said he expects more competition and more open wireless networks to emerge over time, no matter who wins the auction.Besides the possibility of new competition, this auction is also receiving a lot of attention because it is likely to be the last time that large chunks of wireless spectrum will become available. Also with this auction, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has imposed rules that will, to some extent, open up wireless networks.However, a lot of confusion about the auction remains. Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions.What is being auctioned?The FCC is auctioning off a huge swath of wireless spectrum in the 700-MHz range. This spectrum has been used by television broadcasters, which must return the spectrum to the FCC when they switch next year from analog to digital broadcasts.In particular, the FCC is auctioning many "blocks" of spectrum. Two of those blocks, the so-called C-block and D-block, have enough capacity and geographical coverage to create nationwide wireless networks. The smaller blocks of spectrum also could receive a lot of attention from bidders. Those blocks are regional in nature, and many small telecommunications providers are expected to bid on them.How is the 700-MHz portion of spectrum different than others?The physical nature of the 700-MHz spectrum makes it attractive to users and service providers alike. Many digital cellular systems in the U.S. use radio signals in the 1,800-MHz and 1,900-MHz ranges, although some older analog systems still use spectrum in frequencies as low as 800 MHz. Because radio waves in the 700-MHz range are physically longer than higher-frequency radio waves, they travel farther and are better able to penetrate walls and other impediments.These characteristics are important for several reasons. First, the better penetration makes it feasible to use wireless services indoors. That makes these wireless services competitive with land-line broadband services such as Digital Subscriber Line and cable.A second important advantage is that, because radio waves in this portion of spectrum travel farther, it is easier to bring wireless access into rural areas that currently aren't well served by wireless providers. This greater transmission range also means that operators would need to invest less in towers and base stations and other wireless infrastructure.These advantages, combined with the nationwide coverage, explain why the available 700-MHz spectrum is often referred to in the media as "beachfront property."What technologies can be used in this portion of spectrum?Virtually any wireless technology that is currently in use can also be used in the 700-MHz range. That includes traditional and next-generation cellular service and other wireless broadband technologies such as WiMax.What potential benefits could come from this auction?Besides increased competition, the FCC decreed that the winner of the C-block must make networks that use that portion of spectrum available to any device that employs compatible technology. For example, if a carrier builds an EV-DO 3G (Evolution Data Optimized third-generation) network, any device with that technology built in will be able to access the network.This openness will increase consumer choice. Currently, cellular operators in the U.S. typically limit what devices can be used on their networks and what applications can run on those devices. Because this approach gives them so much control, the incumbent carriers fought the open network provision vigorously.Note, however, that this provision applies only to the C-block. Carriers that win any of the other blocks can continue to limit access to those networks.What other rules apply to the spectrum?The effort to open up new spectrum to all devices was led by Google and several public-interest organizations. In addition, those groups urged the FCC to require that the winning bidders make some spectrum available, on a wholesale basis, to other carriers. That was another attempt to foster more competition among wireless carriers. However, this effort failed. The FCC refused to require winning bidders to resell some of that spectrum although, as always, that could occur voluntarily.There are other limits on how the spectrum can be used. One notable mandate is that any network using the D-block must be built to specifications particular to public safety applications and that portions of the spectrum are available for those uses. Because of the emphasis on public safety, the D-block is mandated to be available to 99.3% of the U.S. population by 2019.There are limits on the other blocks, too. For instance, there are use-or-lose provisions that require wireless networks to be built out within a certain time frame or the license will be lost. This is an attempt to make sure that large companies don't buy spectrum simply to block other companies from acquiring it.Who is bidding?The auction has attracted some predictable bidders, some surprise bidders and many smaller bidders. More than 260 applications to participate in the bidding process were initially submitted to the FCC. The predictable companies included incumbent telecommunications operators such as Verizon Communications and AT&amp;T.Then, there are some well-funded bidders with unknown motives, such as petroleum giant Chevron and Vulcan Spectrum. Also in the mix are some cable operators.Besides the big players, many local and regional wireless carriers have applied to participate in the auction and are likely to bid on the regional chunks of spectrum. A local telephone company, for instance, could use such spectrum to provide wireless broadband service to its local customers using a technology like WiMax.What about Google's bid?The potential bidder that has received the most attention is Google, which has been mum about its specific plans. Most observers believe the company's interest in the auction is tied to its recently announced Linux-based Android mobile phone system.Google likely wants to use Android to sell mobile advertising. However, that won't be successful if existing wireless carriers don't allow phones based on it to be used on their networks. If Google owns the open C-block, it will be certain that phones based on its Android system can be used.Few, however, expect Google to create a whole new wireless network from scratch -- if it wins."Google will rent out the spectrum, said consultant Gold. "It would be insane on their part if they decided to put up their own network. Being landlords of the airspace, that makes sense."As a result, it is widely expected that, if Google wins the C-block, it will work with other providers. For instance, rumors have been circulating that Google will work with T-Mobile USA, which has been constrained in expanding its network by a lack of spectrum. Neither company has been talking about such specifics.How will the auction be conducted?A "mock auction" will be held on Jan. 22, and the auction will begin in earnest two days later. Many observers believe the bidding, which will be largely electronic, could last a couple of weeks.Bidding will be anonymous. That is to say, nobody will know who is bidding or how much they are bidding. The goal of this rule is to prevent collusion aimed at keeping out specific bidders."There are quite a few studies that show that, if you know who is bidding, you can engage in anticompetitive blocking behavior," said Public Knowledge's Sohn.How much will spectrum cost?Buying spectrum will require very deep pockets. In particular, the large, nationwide spectrum blocks will surely be expensive. The C-block, for instance, has a reserve, or floor, bidding price of about $4.7 billion. The total reserve price for all blocks is about $10 billion, and many believe the bidding will go much higher than that.
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By Duncan Martell MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.  - Wireless services will lead the next growth phase of the Internet as venture capitalists who helped fund the early boom open their wallets again, industry leaders said Monday.
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New York is on the verge of becoming a wireless city, but not everyone is happy about the prospect.
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The wireless automation technology will see explosive growth over the next few years, a new study predicts.