Wireless Cities on the Way
By Jessica Davis -- EDN, July 4, 2006
As telecommunications companies vie to deliver a next generation of wireless services to businesses and consumers, an unexpected upstart has appeared on the scene in many geographies: the government.
Municipal and county governments from coast to coast in the United States have announced plans to offer broadband wireless data access to citizens in a true sign of the eventual ubiquity of such services.
Whether the goal is to attract businesses and residents to the community, offer more services to citizens, or extend the reach of the digital age to those who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford such services, these local governments are investigating technologies and announcing plans to blanket communities with access.
Not surprisingly, telecommunications carriers are reluctant to relinquish these potential markets to governments, and several battles are underway in the nation’s capital as these businesses struggle to limit the scope of competition from cities and counties.
City IT managers, public policy attorneys, businesses and non-profit organizations converged last month in Santa Clara, Calif. at the MuniWireless conference there to talk about that ongoing battle and their own specific network plans.
“The old generation sometimes doesn’t want the new generation to develop, to step out on its own,” said Gary Bolles, moderator of the event and former editor of Network Computing. “There is friction. Sometimes the previous generation does things to hold back the new generation...”
But the idea of building a new infrastructure of wireless connectivity is one that serves consumers and businesses alike.
“We are actually following a cycle of building new roads and building new capabilities,” Bolles said. “We need to focus not just on building these networks but also what these networks will enable us to do.”
Google offered more details on its previously announced plan to offer ubiquitous free broadband wireless access in Mountain View, Calif.
“We are not a city and we are not an ISP,” said Larry Alder, product manager for the project at Google, explaining why his search engine company would embark on such a project. “We want to understand the needs of traditional ISPs, and we want to provide a test bed for applications. This is also a community outreach for us. We are building this network in our home town.”
Alder said that Google has no monetary objective for the network. Plans are to cover the entire city, which includes 12 square miles and a population of 70,000.
Google is offering the free Wi-Fi for outside use. Those who want to bring the signal inside will have to install their own modems, Alder said.
The Google implementation will be an 802.11 b/g signal, and the initial service will be up to 1 megabit per second. Google expects to install a total of 300 nodes. The network is fully built and being tested. Alder said Google is launching to employees imminently and to the public this summer.
“The service is free so we can learn a lot about the types of usage that free enables,” Alder said.
San Francisco’s goal for its municipal wireless project is to provide “a sustainable, multifaceted program to enable all residents and businesses in the city to share in the benefits of connectivity,” according to Chris Vein, acting director of the Department of Telecommunications and Information Services for the city.
The city’s “digital inclusion” goals are to increase access to jobs, education, healthcare and government services, to enable residents to better engage and participate in their communities and to enable residents to more fully participate in the global information economy and society.
The city has completed the request for information and comment phase, and the RFP phase. It is currently in the negotiation phase.
Phoenix is currently analyzing the possibility of providing wireless, according to Kristine Sigfridson, CIO.
“We are providing free Wi-Fi in all city facilities, libraries, convention centers and airports,” she said. “The technology is simple for that, and we stay below the controversy.”
The city of Atlanta announced the release of its RFP during the MuniWireless conference. The city’s mayor pursued the strategy as a way to strengthen economic development and education, to improve public safety and to provide opportunities to low income families in the city.
Atlanta is hoping for a public/private partnership that can provide the benefits of a network with little or no taxpayer investment.
Other conference participants discussed the debate in Washington. The main action of the bills in question is federal franchising.
“Cities are opposed to the House bill because it will give them a stiff arm to the nose and push them out of the process,” said Jim Baller, an attorney with the Baller Herbst Law Group, which represents municipalities who want to do networks. All the bills make it more difficult, in one way or another, for local governments to provide wireless services.
Baller said that governments have been in the public utility business for years and years with many extending power to rural communities that for-profit companies would have left dark.
But even as carriers and ISPs and municipalities duke it out over who will provide service, and for what cost, in either case network equipment makers and those who sell the components that go into those devices will be the winners
At Motorola, while the sales process or sales team may differ slightly depending upon whether the prospective customer is a carrier or a government, ultimately the network will be built and the equipment will be sold, said Bill Rubino, a product manager for the company’s Mesh Networks Product Group, who presented information about his company’s products to governments at the conference.
So wherever those revenues come from they will end up in the top lines of equipment makers like Motorola, and those who provide the chips for that equipment.
