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Wireless (Continued)

Q: Signups by citizen users for those services that are available seem to be going slowly. Has the need for municipal Wi-Fi, at least in terms of the public's need, been overstated?

A: The need or demand for wireless broadband or Wi-Fi will grow dramatically as new Wi-Fi phones and other accessories come to market. Rural areas have particular needs and will require special strategies. Cities are struggling with the issue of affordability as well as accessibility. There are other strategies to achieve these goals other than building an owned and operated city system. The most obvious one is to build wireless zones or pods, or bubbles as they have been referred to, as opposed to blanketing an entire city.

Q: Is Wi-Fi the right technology? Should the focus be on WiMAX, or on fiber?

A: Like any healthy diet, nothing beats fiber! But when it comes to wireless, Wi-Fi is still a very vibrant and cost-effective technology as long as one understands its pluses as well as its limitations. Wi-Fi works best under environmentally controlled environments. WiMAX certainly holds promise, but as far as consumer wireless applications are concerned, we will not fully see what it can do until at least 2009. Because a signal will need to travel much greater distances in the WiMAX environment, battery-life technology will need to be dramatically improved for this technology to take hold in the mobile universe.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: No idea what we're talking about? Start with this WiMAX FAQ from WiMAX.com Broadband Solutions of Austin. -- Mark]

But let's not forget the wireless broadband offerings by Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T. The wireless incumbents have some interesting advantages, which include the ability to be truly mobile in any city or location where cell phone coverage exists; bundled services, including text messages, video and music downloads; and they are less interference-prone due to both the technology and the fact that they operate on licensed spectrum.

Q: The focus of late has been on "anchor tenancies" to make municipal wireless initiatives viable for private partners.

A: The "anchor tenant" model is necessary to make muni wireless initiatives possible. But moving to a public or consumer market approach requires far greater infrastructure and controls. You need marketing, billing and collection systems, spectrum management and control systems, etc. But an internal-only or internal-mostly systems would be less expensive at every level for communities that only wanted wireless service for government needs (security cameras, parking meters, water/electric meters, remote log-ins for field staff, building inspectors, etc). It just would come with a cost -- not for "free."

Is this idea just ahead of its time?

A: No, I believe local governments have a responsibility to build internal wireless systems to better serve citizens. And like any other utility, there is nothing wrong with building such a system as they would any other infrastructure. There are many other innovative ways to bring broadband to the disadvantaged -- economic incentives to wireless providers, zoning requirements, etc.

The word that is so often misunderstood is the "why" in Wi-Fi. Too much attention has been paid to the "how." One must begin the discussion with why are we building this, what are the alternatives and most importantly how will it be used and by whom?

The tragedy with the EarthLink collapse and muni-wireless dilemma is that everyone told everyone else what they wanted to hear -- and such talk made its way into contracts that could never have been carried out in a fiscally responsible way!

Muni wireless is alive and well -- it just needed a reality check, and a focus on the "Wi."

OK, "Wi"?
By the way, the changing economics and technological realities of providing municipal broadband services directly to the public -- as explained by Alan Shark above -- does not mean the digital divide has been bridged. A new report by John Horrigan, associate director of the Pew Internet and American Life project, uses national survey data to help explain why broadband access in the United States continues to fall behind other countries -- and why catching up will be difficult. (Web site and PDF: Pew's report)