Muni Wi-Fi nightmare
The city of Philadelphia can be generally credited with launching the muni Wi-Fi craze, and is now seeing the down side of that trend. Earlier this week, the City Council held a hearing at which the status of its ambitious municipal network was examined, given the fact that the service provider, EarthLink, has stated it will no longer invest in municipal wireless networks.
EarthLink’s grand plans have run afoul of business realities, and nowhere is that more evident than in Philadelphia. The company said it has spent $20 million to build out Philadelphia’s network, which is still substantial but not complete, more than the $12 million to $15 million expected. The original contract between EarthLink and the city and its Wireless Philadelphia not-for-profit organization was hopelessly one-sided. As noted by the MuniWireless Web site, EarthLink is expected to pay $2 million to the city, $450,000 in inspection fees and rental fees of $2 per month for each streetlight used in mounting antennas, along with 3700 free accounts for city workers to access the network. The contract also calls for 23 free zones and 25,000 reduced price accounts for low-income families that qualify in WP’s digital inclusion program.
All of that, on top of the higher-than-expected cost of actually installing Wi-Fi citywide leaves EarthLink in no position to do anything but bleed red ink. Subscribership is not likely to cover those costs any time soon, if ever. The company did not attend the hearing, sending an unsigned statement claiming confidentiality, but it’s obvious that EarthLink is between a rock and a hard place here.
In a report also issued this week, the New America Foundation blames Wireless Philadelphia for handing its network over to a private concern. I didn’t read the whole report, but here’s a blogger who did and takes issue with it, for reasons I understand.
Rather than parsing out blame, however, it seems to be that some reasonable re-negotiation needs to take place that doesn’t leave Philadelphia’s ambitious plans for bridging the digital divide in limbo but also doesn’t bankrupt the company attempting to make those dreams a reality. The municipal Wi-Fi market has come a long way and much has been learned – the hard way – in the process. Philadelphia pioneered once, and it could do so again.
December 19th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Its is truly sad to watch a great idea like Muni WIFI go down in flames because people jump into lowest bidder instead of smatest bidder. These unproven deployment methods are the reason for he financial bleeding. Its a matter of seeking technological maturity or technological common sense. Only recently have the technologies matured into stability, penetration and security yet few if any of these products can be found in deployed networks. I know it may sound cliche but with the technologies available today and the various methods tried we have what it takes to get it done easily and at very low cost. Related technologies, mimo, solar, cunductive plastics, POE, better standards like 802.11n and 802.16e Wimax hybrid systems along with low cost multiplexed DSL line routers would be phenominal right about now. Half the cost, 5x the speed, relatively secure, dependable, and with all the tools that help spectrum deployment, the list goes on and on. I wish I had the opportunity to deploy one or even plan a fix for it.
December 21st, 2007 at 11:30 am
It seems that as soon as WIFI was released the phone companies rushed to get their HSDPA/EVDO Mobile Broadband cards out onto the market. Sierra Wireless , Pantech and Novatel rushed to get their deployments with Sprint , Verizon and ATT.
Not only did they kill off the Wifi business they have severely incresed the competition in Satellite Internet. Hughesnet, Starband and Wildblue. No one talks about them because they are privately held.
Those same phone companies had the technology in 1996 to deploy it but dragged their feet as Qualcomm WCDMA was deployed it overseas. It was only when a threat to the domestic market arose did you see US Telecoms deploy. Its the same way with DSL now only when Cable Fiber networks threaten to take away phone company core business; that is when the “monopoly” telephone companies seem to react.
The telecom act was signed over a Decade ago. The phone companies were given the $$$ to build out fiber to the home. All they did was record RECORD PROFITS and gave us 30 year old ADSL technology. Now 10 years later they kill off threats like WIFI and WIMAX because they threaten the “core” business. Some of you need to wake up. Your still being played by the phone companies.
Leave a Comment
Advertisement
Categories
Recent Posts
Calendar
Archives
Your Account
Archived Categories
Subscribe