Muni Wi-Fi Redux September 4, 2007
Posted by ianmartinez in : Trends, What's New?, Networking, Policy , trackbackMaybe if I keep pointing links at Salon’s Machinist, I’ll get Farhad Manjoo’s autograph.
I cannot say how many times I’ve found myself reading Machinist, completely disagreeing with Manjoo’s main point, and completely captivated by his argument. Not a single other tech or telecom blogger does that for me. Manjoo is not only a spectacular writer, but he sees so far past the conventional wisdom on the space in which tech, telecom, policy and culture interact (we agree a lot, too, by the way).
Late last week, we saw a flurry of stories on Municipal Wi-Fi, driven mostly by the languishing network in San Francisco. The New York Times Bits blog joined Machinist in pointing to hiccups in the project. Several major cities have now had noteworthy setbacks in deploying their wireless networks.
This wave of municipal setbacks (remembering that such networks in small rural communities have done fairly well) is food for thought. The San Francisco network stumbled in large part due to Earthlink’s business struggles and general job cutbacks. A renewed questioning of municipal Wi-Fi’s efficacy from a business perspective is interesting no matter what your politics on the matter.
Earthlink’s problems aren’t limited to Seattle, according to the Houston Chronicle:
EarthLink last week agreed to pay the city a $5 million penalty, giving it nine months to find an investment partner for the project and an option to walk away from the deal if it can’t. It doesn’t mean the deal is dead, but it’s definitely on life support.
Wired is calling the national trend an outright “epidemic.”
The dream of wireless networks bathing U.S. cities in free and pervasive internet access has come to an end, at least for now. As the number of failed or stalled municipal wireless projects continues to rise, the focus has shifted from closing the so-called digital divide to why plans for such networks, in only a year’s time, seem to be dissolving almost daily.
Last week, San Francisco, Chicago and St. Louis all announced significant and perhaps fatal roadblocks in their municipal Wi-Fi projects.
In short, in Houston, Seattle, Milwaukee and elsewhere, citywide wireless projects are tough to pull off.
But almost none of the commentaries in the past week have categorically dismissed muni Wi-Fi, either from a business or a public good perspective. This is illustrative of the complicated relationship between public- and private-sector goals on matter of infrastructure and competitiveness.
As the Chronicle continues:
Many argued [muni wireless is] not necessary, that there’s plenty of wireless access already available.
That’s true, but it’s not ubiquitous and not necessarily inexpensive. In fact, if you want guaranteed wireless Internet access for a mobile computer — which is the biggest promise of citywide Wi-Fi — it will cost you a pretty penny. The wireless Internet landscape is fractured and often pricey.
So, if you’re a city and you want your citizens to have free wireless (a noble, and smart, goal), you’d better be willing to either foot the bill or make sure it’s profitable for established or third-pipe carriers. It may be that better, purely private solutions emerge, though the long history of what works and doesn’t in deploying infrastructure suggests that’s unlikely.
No matter what the answer, though, this question is precisely why we so strongly oppose legislation that bans localities from establishing muni networks. Conversely, it’s why we support the Community Broadband Act of 2007, sponsored by Senators Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Smith, D-Tenn.
In the patchwork quilt that very likely emerges to get affordable broadband to all Americans, we can’t have states taking one tool — municipal networks — off the table. If they’re going to work, it’s going to take ingenuity and a new understanding how best to meet both public-sector and private-sector goals. Precisely because of the challenges involved in putting it together, any network that successfully meets those criteria will likely be highly innovative and very effective. Opponents of such networks shouldn’t let their fear of municipal overreach limit what’s possible for citizens and consumers everywhere.
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