Community Wireless

New Blog URL

2005-09-11T17:58:00.000-04:00

This blog is moving to http://www.wirelesscommunity.info. Please update your bookmarks.

Wireless Technology in the Face of Natural Disaster

2005-09-06T01:12:00.000-04:00

Katrina has been devastating, both in physical and psychological terms. Mine (and everyone else's) heart goes out to everyone affected by the hurricane and its aftermath.

Once the dust has settled from the initial impact of this natural disaster, many people have begun to notice that of the most important components of our everyday lives, means of communications, have been completely shut down. While we have no answers yet, we do see the need for communications tools to get news and updates to the victims, to get information about the victims to their families, and to help coordinate rescue operations. I'll direct you to Sascha Meinrath's site where he talks about how (at least in part) wireless technologies can help:

http://www.saschameinrath.com/2005sep05community_wireless_emegency_resonse
http://www.saschameinrath.com/2005sep02new_orleans_cuwin_2
http://www.saschameinrath.com/2005aug30disaster_recovery_cuwin

I wouldn't suggest that this is a complete answer, but its a start.

tags: community wireless

The Resident Article on Muni-Wireless for New York

2005-09-01T18:10:00.000-04:00

The Resident (August 29, 2005 issue, page 21, no permanent link available) reporter Tim Fox interviewed me about municipal wireless and what it might mean in New York. (The original article gets my last name wrong. I've corrected it below.)

Express Lines: The City's High-Tech Experts Debate How To Bring Internet Access to All New Yorkers

By Tim Fox

From Broadway to Battery Park and beyond, Web-savvy users can now log on with ease as low-cost Internet cafés, and free wireless spaces have transformed the city into a green pasture for laptop-wielding New Yorkers.

"We already have an amazing network," says Ted Bongiovanni, a director at the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu), an educational technology department at Columbia University. "I see a very wired or wireless future for New York."

At least that’s the ideal. In truth, though broadband — dedicated highspeed Internet access — is available to many New Yorkers, the majority still has problems getting the service, according to Dana Spiegel, the executive director of NYCwireless, a New York group that promotes free wireless Internet access.

"About 60 percent of New York City doesn’t make use of broadband, and 90 percent of low-income people have no broadband," he says. "The reason for this is that most communities have only access to one or two big providers, and broadband can’t be had in New York for less than $50 a month."

Some state and local governments are making broadband a public utility akin to water, sewerage, telephone lines and electricity. The state of Georgia now wires up with Georgia Public Web, a high-speed Internet provider owned by the state’s municipalities. The government of Philadelphia plans to offer free or low-cost Wi-Fi, a popular high-speed Internet wireless service. But city experts don’t see a public utility on New York’s broadband horizon.

NYCwireless is interested in improving broadband accessibility and affordability, but not making it a public utility, Spiegel says.

Bongiovanni compares broadband with human rights, but says government involvement is a bad idea. "For those of us who live with broadband everyday, it is a right. But the city could end up being an investor in a technology that is antiquated."

At the same time, he says, "I don’t think that municipalities should be prohibited from providing these services if they decide that’s what’s best since what they’re doing is repackaging a public good. The industry is asking for a monopoly, and that’s just not right to provide at the expense of citizens."

There are effective models for how government could get involved, says Jason Fox, a senior director at Digital Knowledge Ventures, a unit of Columbia University. "In Singapore, it is a public service and looked at as a way to train the workforce for the future," he says. "Singapore has been one of the leaders of broadband penetration, and people have been looking at that as a model for how governments can be proactive and effective [in promoting broadband access]. At the same time, I am wary of increased city involvement in improving broadband access and would rather see something done at the national level."

Thus, far national and local efforts have been limited. In a March 26, 2004, speech, President George W. Bush promised universal broadband access by 2007 and extended an Internet-tax ban for two years. Meanwhile, a one-year city task force created on April 14 by the City Council committee for technology in government will advise the mayor on making Internet accessible to New Yorkers. But committee chairwoman and task-force member Gale A. Brewer says the city has no plans to make broadband a public utility.

Fox, however, says things might not be so bad after all. "I am not convinced that New York City has a real problem. [We have] the fourth-largest broadband connection in the country," he says. "Sixty-six percent of computer users are connected. That tells me that it is not a major concern. There are much more pressing issues the city has to deal with — ground zero, the state of the schools, the rapidly declining subway infrastructure — to me those are all more important. Broadband would not even rate in the top 10."

China and Japan announce 4G alliance

2005-09-01T18:09:00.000-04:00

There is an interesting story at Silicon.com that talks about China and Japan collaborating on 4G.

Here are two countries that have not been big adopters of Wi-Fi and other broadband wireless technologies for internet distribution, and who also are not big promoters of the participatory and two-way culture that has made Wi-Fi and Community Wireless so popular in the Americas and Europe. It will be interesting to see how these two countries develop their own take on broadband wireless. I suspect that, like 3G in Japan, 4G won't be so much about the internet in general, but will be more of a walled garden approach as content is concerned. Its interesting to note that the way that both Japanese cell providers and the Chinese government view content distribution, namely as a channel where media is "approved" or blocked, is very similar.

New York Post Interview: Cities, Providers War Over Wi-Fi as Utility

2005-08-28T21:34:00.000-04:00

The New York Post has an article by Sam Gustin about Wi-Fi as a public utility. I was interviewed about the work NYCwireless has done:

But Executive Director of NYCwireless Dana Spiegel worries that, contrary to perceptions of a connected city, many are left out. "Only 10 percent of low-income families in New York City have access to broadband, because Time Warner and Verizon keep prices for broadband artificially high."

"Just like the grass and the trees and the benches are provided by the city," Spiegel said, "we think that broadband Internet access should be provided as well."

tags: news, interview, muniwireless, new york city

NYC MTA RFP for Subway Cellular Service

2005-08-27T16:49:00.000-04:00

Articles in the New York Times and the New York Daily News announce that the New York City "Metropolitan Transportation Authority began soliciting bids for a 10-year contract that will involve immense technical complexity and probably be worth $50 million to $100 million" (New York Times).

Though not specifically broadband related, this RFP by the MTA is important because it represents the first time that any wireless technology has been embraced by the City's subway system. I think that a planned expansion of cell systems into the subway is an important step in the right direction for New York, though limiting it to cellular technology shows that the MTA doesn't fully "get it".

I've spoken to many people who would spend upwards of 20-30 minutes waiting for a subway train to arrive, especially in stations that are outside of midtown and downtown Manhattan. These people want to be able to use their laptops and PDAs to get work done and to communicate with each other, and Wi-Fi would be the ideal technology for this. An ad-supported Wi-Fi network would complement the existing MTA advertising division.

One thing that I don't get is that if this is meant to address safety and security issues, why the MTA wouldn't want cell phones to be usable inside subway tunnels. Claiming concern about phones being used for remote detonation of bombs is preposterous: When was the last time that a terrorist setup a bomb in New York City, let alone in a subway? There are, frankly, plenty of other wireless technologies that could be used if a terrorist had the inclination.

Of greater concern should be the many times that someone would need assistance while stuck in a subway car halfway between stations, an event that happens at least weekly. Considering how many times the subway breaks down, I would think that the MTA would jump at the chance to give people the convenience of phone use while traveling.

tags: new york city, news, urban wireless

FreePress Report on the Woeful State of Broadband in America

2005-08-19T09:58:00.000-04:00

FreePress, Consumer Federation of America, and Consumers Union have released an informative report on how the US is lagging behind the rest of the world with regard to broadband.

In the report, FreePress et. al. take the FCC and Commissioner Martin to task for painting a misleading rosy picture of broadband use and deployment across the US. They highlight a number of important, but often overlooked aspects of how the FCC evaluates broadband deployment (which they are required to do yearly by law):

The FCC overstates broadband penetration rates. The FCC report considers a ZIP code covered by broadband service if just one person subscribes. No consideration is given to price, speed or availability of that connection throughout the area.

The FCC misrepresents exactly how many connections are "high-speed." The FCC defines "high-speed" as 200 kilobits per second, barely enough to receive low-quality streaming video and far below what other countries consider to be a high-speed connection.

The United States remains 16th in the world in broadband penetration per capita. The United States also ranks 16th in terms of broadband growth rates, suggesting our world ranking won't improve any time soon. On a per megabit basis, U.S. consumers pay 10 to 25 times more than broadband users in Japan.

Despite FCC claims, digital divide persists and is growing wider. Broadband adoption is largely dependent on socio-economic status. In addition, broadband penetration in urban and suburban in areas is double that of rural areas.

Reports of a broadband "price war" are misleading. Analysis of "low-priced" introductory offers by companies like SBC and Comcast reveal them to be little more than bait-and-switch gimmicks.

The FCC ignores the lack of competition in the broadband market. Cable and DSL providers control almost 98 percent of the residential and small-business broadband market. Yet the FCC recently eliminated "open access" requirements for DSL companies to lease their lines, rules that fostered the only true competition in the broadband market.

I think one of the most important findings of this report is something I've been talking about for a while, namely the misleading pricing that cable/telco companies have been promoting. Also important is the report's assertion that there is no real competition in the broadband market, and that wireless and satellite broadband should even be considered anything but a fringe part of the market. All of the findings in the report are based on published facts, many of them provided by the FCC. Every statement FreePress makes cites the relevant source for information.

If you read one thing this week, make it this report!

tags: policy, news

Consumers Still Don't Understand Wi-Fi Potential

2005-08-18T10:38:00.000-04:00

In-Stat, a market research firm, released a report stating that consumers still don't understand the potential of Wi-Fi:

"Consumer electronics vendors have a challenge to educate consumers about Wi-Fi and to overcome the perception that Wi-Fi is simply a data networking technology," In-Stat analyst Norm Bogen said in a statement. "In-Stat believes the benefits to consumers of Wi-Fi connectivity in consumer electronics devices are significant enough to build a major market segment over the next five years."

Those of you who are readers of this blog and supporters of Community Wireless groups know that the potential for Wi-Fi lies in its ability to break down barriers between the people living in a local community. It is a fundamentally social technology, especially when used in public spaces. NYCwireless has worked hard to spread this view, especially through the events we hold at our parks, like Spectropolis.
I think its important for all of us that support Community Wireless to work on educating the general public.

tags: community wireless, news

Students Work on Singapore Community Wireless

2005-08-15T23:56:00.000-04:00

I was recently contacted by a group of students from Raffles Junior College in Singapore, asking about NYCwireless. They are interested in bringing public wireless networking to the people of Singapore, and I support them completely. We need more students working on Community Wireless.

Their questions, and my responses:

Dear Sir/Mdm,
We, students from the Raffles Junior College, thank you for agreeing to lend us your precious time to fill in our email interview.

Since setting up of the wireless service, just exactly how popular is this service since you started it in terms of average daily users?

NYCwireless has helped create dozens of public hotspots with partners throughout Manhattan. Some of our most popular parks, like Bryant Park, Union Square Park, City Hall Park, and the South Street Seaport see hundreds of users per day.

What are some of the feedbacks(positive and negative) you have got from the members of the public?

The best feedback we get is that people use our hotspots. Most users don’t even contact us about their usage.

We have held a number of events at our hotspots, including educational sessions about Wi-Fi and big Arts Festivals. Spectropolis (http://www.spectropolis.info) was incredibly successful, and drew thousands of people from around New York and around the country (some even internationally).

This is a non-profit organization. How do you pay for the cost of setting up this service? Do you have the government funding the organization?

All of our hotspots are funded by partner organizations. For example, the hotspots that are located in Downtown Manhattan are sponsored by the Alliance for Downtown New York, a Business Improvement District company. Some of our personal hotspots are set up and run by individual volunteers. We have some funding through personal donations to NYCwireless, but no formal funding arrangements.

What are the costs of set up and maintenance like?

A public park hotspot costs on the order of a few $1000’s. The internet is brought in via a local ISP at a cost of about $100/month. The hardware costs only about $500-$1000.

Is this service available 24 hours?

Yes. All of our hotspots are online all day. Some even operate all year round (it gets very cold in NYC in the middle of February!).

What are the problems the organization face in implementing the service?

Some of the difficulties include getting access to surrounding buildings to mount the wireless hardware, and promoting the availability of the wireless service. We have a great record of accomplishment with our deployments, which rarely need any maintenance.

Following the success of this project, what are the impacts that it has on the people and economy?

As one of the first Community Wireless Network, and one of the most visible, we believe that our work has paved the way for an entire movement of people. We have generated a significant amount of press (and still do), which has led to many people learning about Community Wireless, and the possibilities of public Wi-Fi. We also work with other organizations around the country, like Free Press and the Consumer’s Union to promote awareness and deployment of affordable wireless broadband in local communities. Some of our work in New York City has involved bringing free Wi-Fi to underprivileged and underserved residents.

What do you think of our idea of trying to provide a similar service to the working public of Singapore?

We whole-heartedly support and encourage you to undertake this project. We would be happy to help you in any way we can. We also encourage you to make use of all of the wonderful Open Source tools created by Community Wireless Groups around the world, from CUWiN’s (Urbana, Illinois, USA) wireless mesh software, to IleSansFil’s (Montreal, Canada) WifiDog Hotspot portal management system, to our (NYCwireless) Pebble Linux hotspot operating system, to Freifunk.net’s (Berlin, Germany) Freifunk Firmware for the Linksys WRT54G.

Thank you for your contribution and help.

Jacinta, Lionel, Amy and YuGai

tags: community wireless, interview

Bruce Fein's New York Times Letter to the Editor

2005-08-14T19:13:00.000-04:00

also published at http://www.nycwireless.net/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=32

Bruce Fein, a former general counsel for the FCC under President Reagan, published a letter to the editor in today's New York Times. He claims that Nicholas D. Kristof's recent column "wrongly chastises New York for neglecting to emulate the citywide wireless networks in rural Oregon" due to far greater cost of deploying Wi-Fi in populated urban areas.

While Mr. Fein is correct in stating that Wi-Fi in New York would be more costly than in, say, Philadelphia (as I have written previously in this blog [1, 2]), his claim that it would cost $1 billion is way off the mark. Yes, New York City recently put out an RFP for a $1 billion wireless network for police, fire, and emergency rescue use. This network is intended to be private and secure, and won't likely use Wi-Fi (it certainly won't use Wi-Fi in the normal 802.11a/b/g bands).

From where is Mr. Fein getting his $1 billion figure? According to JupiterResearch, the cost of building and maintaining a municipal wireless network is $150,000 per square mile over five years. Sascha Meinrath of CUWiN claims that a network with a density of 142 nodes per square mile would cost about $49,700. If we take these as a low and a high estimate, we wind up with a total cost for NYC between $15 million and $50 million. Even if we triple the JupiterResearch cost estimates, we don't come even close to Mr. Fein's number.

Furthermore, Mr. Fein's claim that such a network would be entirely Wi-Fi is mis-informed. Such a network should use whatever wireless and wired technologies are appropriate. Wi-Fi happens to be the best solution for getting internet access over the "last 100 yards". As for competition, New York could be the city that encourages the most R&D in wireless, if only the City created the right environment, perhaps by opening up more lightpole franchises at an affordable rate.

All of this doesn't address the most important issue: only about 35% of New Yorkers have broadband, and only 10% of low-income families in New York City have broadband. And this is the most connected city in the country! We should be demanding that the Mayor and everyone else in our City Government address this situation! Wi-Fi, WiMax, Wi-whatever—wireline or wireless—it doesn't matter. In fact, any viable solution will make use of all of these technologies, as well as some others that aren't even released yet.

We shouldn't look at this problem as being so large and costly that we can't address it. We can start small. NYCwireless and its partners have brought free Wi-Fi to many City parks and other public spaces. And we continue to bring public Wi-Fi to low income buildings and other neighborhoods. Working together, we (and every single New Yorker) can make a difference.

Broadband Is Too Important to Be Left to Cable-Phone Duopoly

2005-08-14T13:31:00.000-04:00

Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post has written an interesting article on why "Broadband Is Too Important to Be Left to Cable-Phone Duopoly". In the article, he talks about why the FCC and Federal Government shouldn't leave the future of broadband internet access to the cable guys or the phone company.

He lists the ways that telco and cable companies have "let down their customers":

Price
Reliability
Getting connected
Tech support
Features

I'm left to wonder: "What's left?" These failings seem to cover the entirety of the business of providing internet service. If cable and telco companies fail on all of these counts, what's left for them to succeed at?

tags: news, policy

InternetWeek Interview

2005-08-14T03:50:00.000-04:00

I was recently interviewed by Christopher Heun for an article in InternetWeek about Municipal Wireless.

"A lot of cities are getting involved in this specifically because they’ve been lied to and burned by the telecom companies, and they’ve thrown up their hands and said enough," says Dana Spiegel, a software consultant and executive director of NYCwireless, a nonprofit that has helped set up dozens of free public wireless hotspots in New York City since 2001. "If a city decides for the benefit of all residents that everyone should have access to broadband services at an affordable rate and if Verizon (Communications) or SBC (Communications) is not doing that, then the city should have the right to do that."

tags: news, interview, muniwireless

Cost of Deploying an Open Source Mesh Community Network

2005-08-13T18:38:00.000-04:00

I'm quite late in posting about a great article by Sascha Meinrath (one of the leaders of the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network) about the costs of deploying a mesh-based wireless network.

Sascha's calculations are based on a rural/suburban environment, which is where most of his experience has been. His cost numbers are quite impressive. For a network of reasonable size, using an open source solution like CUWiNware (Sascha's open source mesh wireless OS) is cheaper than commercial alternatives, even after you include deployment, maintenance, and ongoing costs.

In a city environment, I suspect the numbers would be a little different, but the end result would be the same. First, you'd need a greater concentration of wireless nodes, since tall buildings would cause the wireless signals to degrade faster. Second, you'd need to have a two-pronged deployment strategy since getting wireless connectivity to a building doesn't get wireless internet service through a building, to all of the apartments. This is where a mesh network where each mesh node also acted like a hotspot (something CUWiNware doesn't yet do) would be helpful. You could extend the mesh throughout a building using the same nodes that are used to connect outside of the building.

Regardless, in an urban environment an open source mesh network would be even more important since it would allow people to join and extend the network without any central coordination.

tags: mesh, community wireless

National Journal Article on Municipal Wireless

2005-08-10T09:47:00.000-04:00

There is a good multi-part series of articles in the National Journal's Insider Update that talks about policy implications of Municipal Wireless:

When the Internet debuted on the national political stage in President Clinton's 1997 State of the Union address, it was generally accepted that the private sector would take the lead in growing the unusual and compelling, new commercial network.

Eight years later, the debate about whether municipalities should be funding or creating high-speed Internet networks has a back-to-the-future quality. Technological advances, dissatisfaction with the nation's broadband pace over the past several years, and the dynamics of convergence have led "digital municipalism" to hit its stride.

tags: news, policy

How to Bring an Affordable Broadband ISP into New York City

2005-07-20T11:43:00.000-04:00

I was recently asked by a colleague how an ISP like Earthlink can provide low cost broadband in New York City. The truth is that without help, they can't. Let's look at the two possibilities that exist: using existing infrastructure and building new infrastructure.

Existing infrastructure

There exist a handful of wires that enter most businesses and homes: copper/phone, coaxial, and electrical wiring.

Copper cabling is owned by Verizon. Because of an FCC requirement they must provide "common carrier" access at a competitive rate to other ISPs, which means that Earthlink can gain access to the copper and provide DSL. Earthlink would have to pay Verizon an access rate somewhat equivalent to (but probably a little less than) Verizon's own DSL service, about $30 a month. Earthlink would need to charge at least this much in order to make any revenue on the service, so there's no way they could underbid Verizon's service. Earthlink, by the way, offers DSL in New York City at a rate of $19.95 for the first 6 months, and $45.95 per month for the second 6 months, which is an average of $32.95 per month for the minimum 1 year of service.

Coaxial cable is owned by either Time Warner Cable (TWC) or Cablevision, depending on which area of the city you are in. Over cable, Earthlink currently provides a cablemodem service at $44.95 a month. This service is essentially a rebranding of the Time Warner Cable Road Runner service, and as such, Earthlink must pay TWC an access rate that is close to TWC's own cablemodem service, which is $44.95 per month. Furthermore, due to the recent Brand X Supreme Court decision, TWC is no longer required to let Earthlink provide this service.

Electrical lines are owned by ConEd. While technologies like Broadband over Powerlines (BPL) are starting to be deployed, they are still in their infancy. Even if such technologies were to be made available over ConEd's power lines—and there are indications that much of New York City's power lines and in building wiring won't support this technology—ConEd the electric company is new to broadband service provision, and it is likely that they either will not allow a third party ISP like Earthlink to offer service, or will charge an uncompetitive rate for providing access.

New Infrastructure

Earthlink can build its own infrastructure to provide service. There are generally two components to a broadband service: internet connectivity/backhaul and last mile connectivity. Generally, the last mile connectivity—the line that brings the internet into your residence or business—is the most expensive part. There are options for backhaul that Earthlink can already use, such as dark fiber or leasing communications lines from a number of providers (Verizon included).

Last mile connectivity, in the case of wired service, requires digging up streets and sidewalks, bringing one or more cables into the basement of a building (in New York City, at least), and then bringing that cable up to the apartment or store that is receiving the service. This is expensive because it requires a significant amount of human labor, and because it requires lots of construction and politicking to get permits to do the work. It is unclear what such a network would cost to the end user subscribing to Earthlink service, but it would require an enormous investment on Earthlink's part to even get 1 person hooked up. Furthermore, with the exception of perhaps fiber, such a network would just be a duplication of an existing copper, coax, or electrical network. Many buildings in downtown Manhattan already have a fiber line, so this might be a starting point, but fiber lines are absent exist from most residences in New York City.

The alternative is wireless last mile service. In this case, Earthlink would have to both select a technology—there are plenty out there that would work, including WiMax and Wi-Fi, and Earthlink is trialing them in other cities—and deploy the antennas. New York City, which is a large land area (303 square miles), has a secondary difficulty that isn't shared by any other city in the USA: height. You can read a bit more about height issues that New York City presents in a previous blog post. These issues mean that there would have to be sufficient density of antenna deployment throughout the City in order to provide service.

Wireless solutions, however, are vastly cheaper than any wireline solution. Orders of magnitude cheaper. So much cheaper, in fact, that even a full City-wide deployment might be made available at an affordable (read $20 or so per month) rate to every resident.

Where can these antennas be placed? One option is to use the same deployment strategy that cellphone networks use, contracting with private land owners in the City and mounting them on buildings. This would work, but prices for antenna location rental are high, residents don't want antennas nearby their apartments (the "not in my backyard" problem that plagues most infrastructure deployment), and there just aren't enough enough locations. In fact, antenna deployment is so difficult that New York City has horrible cell phone service. This is the primary reason why DoITT, New York City's government IT organization has created a plan to lease City lightpoles. Earthlink could use City lightpoles for their network (they have already suggested that they'd like to), but the cost of doing so is still too expensive and too onerous to make it a viable option, at least under DoITT's leasing requirements (the reasons for this are saved for another blog entry).

Solutions?

In the end, the only way to bring affordable broadband to New York is to involve the Government. Either through requirements that prevent existing network owners from price gouging and other monopolistic behaviors, or through programs that enables cheap infrastructure to be created by new network providers. In the latter case, we can solve the problem for one or a couple of private companies by reducing the cost of leasing public space, but this really discounts the value of the investments we as residents of New York City have made in our public infrastructure.

Really, the best solution is for us, as a City, to invest in building more public, shared infrastructure. We have already done so by laying down lots of fiber cable (there's still lots that has gone unused). We should invest in more infrastructure that will enable lots of companies to compete to provide broadband to New Yorkers. This way, we don't create another monopoly broadband provider, but rather create a means for lots of market competition.

USA Today Editorial: Let them have broadband

2005-07-20T10:27:00.000-04:00

There is a great editorial on public broadband in today's USA Today. Its short, and to the point. You should just go read it.

FCC Chairman Martin's "Policy" for Broadband

2005-07-19T16:25:00.000-04:00

It often impresses me that people who are so "pro-free market" and "pro-competition" are able to completely ignore these beliefs when faced with the pleas of a large company (or several large companies). FCC Chairman Martin talks today in an artcile in the Wall Street Journal, "Fighting a Broadband Battle" about how he believes universal broadband should be central to his agency's agenda:

In an interview, Mr. Martin, a 38-year-old Bush loyalist, says his top goal is to increase Americans' access to high-speed Internet. Late last week, he began circulating plans to loosen rules so neither phone nor cable companies will be required to share their Internet connections with competitors like America Online, a change that essentially would create a duopoly in many local markets. He also embraces the idea that local governments should be allowed to offer wireless Internet services, at least in rural areas where some phone and cable companies balk at providing high-speed service.

Mr. Martin's theory is that phone and cable companies will be more inclined to expand broadband connections to consumers if they don't have to help foot the bill for their rivals. "If you have to share your network at marginal costs with your competitors, going forward you won't have an incentive to invest in your network," he says. Last month, the Supreme Court deferred to the FCC on the matter, handing Mr. Martin an invitation to write new rules.

There is a simple tenet of basic economic theory that says that a company will always perform to maximize its profit. Accordingly, it would be illogical for a phone or cable company to refuse to offer broadband service if there is profit to be made. This is easy to understand. What's not so easy to understand is why Mr. Martin is under the mistaken impression that (a) sharing a network necessarily reduces profits, and (b) that this is the only reason why phone and cable companies are not building more broadband.

The truth of the matter is that Commissioner Martin's economic basis for policy is fundamentally flawed. He is basing his policy on the requests of the largest players in an industry that is known for lying, cheating, and taking money from government without delivering on promises. He is taking this industry's statements about why there isn't more broadband penetration in this country at face value. He isn't questioning why a big and successful company cannot figure out how to make a profit in a properly competitive market.

The phone and cable companies that are behind this FCC policy shift aren't doing their best to compete in an open marketplace. They are doing their best to ensure that there is no open marketplace at all. There is another simple tenet of basic economic theory that says that the maximal amount of profit can be derived from a market when there is pure monopoly power, where prices can be set artificially high, and competition can be blocked.

Unfortunately, this is the type of anti-competitive marketplace towards which we are heading, and Commissioner Martin is driving us there at full steam. We are heading towards a marketplace where there are only one or two companies (the definition of monopoly or duoploy, indeed). Thus far, where such a marketplace exists in this country—and there are plenty of cities and towns where this is true—broadband penetration is low and prices for broadband are high. Where there is a healty marketplace—and this is primarily due to entry by a third competitive entity, the municipality—broadband penetration is high and prices are low.

Verizon high-speed network in Syracuse, NY

2005-07-14T14:10:00.000-04:00

According to the article "Syracuse is newest wireless hotspot" in the Post Standard, Verizon is rolling out its EVDO service in Syracuse, NY. This is a good thing, since EVDO represents an upgrade to existing cell data service.

However, Verizon is also calling this service a "Hotspot":

"This service basically makes all of the Syracuse area . . . one big hotspot," said John O'Malley, a Verizon Wireless spokesman.

EVDO service is NOT a Hotspot. A Hotspot is high-speed, meaning at least 1mbps downstream (and some similar bandwidth upstream). EVDO provides at best 400-700kbps.

And while Verizon claims that EVDO is secure, this has little to do with the wireless technology. A Wi-Fi transmission can be made secure with any number of software technologies, including an office VPN.

And Verizon EVDO is 2-3 times more expensive then the most expensive Wi-Fi subscriptions.

Unfortunately, this article merely regurgitates misleading statements by Verizon.

Times Ledger Interview on Verizon Fiber FiOS and Competition

2005-07-11T01:18:00.000-04:00

The Times Ledger recently ran an article about Verizon's Fiber FiOS deployments in New York City, in which I was interviewed.

I am very much in favor of any deployments of faster broadband speeds in New York City. We certainly need whatever we can get. Its great that Verizon is building its FiOS system in our backyard.

However, as I talk about in the article, we have to be careful about how and where broadband is deployed:

Dana Spiegel, executive director of NYCwireless, a wireless advocacy group, called fiber optic technology a "double-edged sword."

He said the replacement of the copper wires to the homes by fiber optic would reduce competition, because of a Federal Communication Commission regulation that requires telecommunications companies to provide universal access for competitors on their copper, but not fiber optic, wires.

"When you remove competition, prices go up," he said. "There will be no competitive pressure."

Verizon has chosen a high-income area of New York City to do its first deployment, and they certainly have their reasons for this. We must ensure that FiOS comes to ALL parts of New York City, to ensure that we don't create yet another uneven service and set of underprivileged areas.

We also must be careful about ensuring that competition exists in the broadband marketplace. What FiOS brings is an unregulated pipe into our residences and businesses. This means that, especially given past performance, only Verizon will be able to use the FiOS system to provide broadband services. So we have a single vendor on FiOS, a single vendor on Cable, and a phone line that falls into disrepear, preventing the multitude of DSL providers from proving service. FiOS, while promising the next generation of broadband speeds, also brings with it a reduction in broadband competition.

Man Arrested in Florida for "stealing" Wi-Fi

2005-07-07T14:02:00.000-04:00

The St. Petersburg Times reports that a man has been arrested for parking outside of someone's house and using their Wi-Fi network connection to access the internet. The article states:

"'It's so new statistics are not kept,' said Special Agent Bob Breeden, head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's computer crime division.
But experts believe there are scores of incidents occurring undetected, sometimes to frightening effect. People have used the cloak of wireless to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats, according to authorities."

This is blatant fear-mongering. While it is possible to do all of those things mentioned in this paragraph, there have been no documented cases of this taking place. To maintain that unsecured wireless networks are trafficking mechanisms for credit card theft and child pornography is pure speculation.

Furthermore, the use of someone else's internet connection is by no means illegal. Most ISPs do have contract requirements that prevent a subscriber from sharing their internet connection. There are plenty that do not, such as Speakeasy and Bway.net. Sharing internet in this way, with such an ISP, is not only perfectly legal, it is condoned by the service provider as well.

Universal Access and Fiscal Responsibility

2005-07-05T00:57:00.000-04:00

In a great post, Sascha Meinrath, a fellow Community Wireless proponent talks about the Pros of Community Networks.

If Universal Access is a key component of a community's mission, then it can be achieved 3 ways:

Via laws and regulation - This is the least likely to succeed, since laws change, and can often times be trumped by state and federal legislation. National or even local for-profit companies are very good at fighting against such laws, both politically and via public opinion.
Via subsidies and tax breaks/credits - This is expensive. Consider what it might cost in terms of tax dollars to convince a for-profit company to provide universal access. The company is in a position of power, in this case, and the price that a community will pay is proportional to how much they want the service. This is standard supply/demand economics.
Via municipal networks - This may or may not be expensive, and has clear benefits over the medium and long term (as well as other benefits above).

The key here is that muni-networks are very often (always?) cheaper than the alternative, which is #2. Also, such projects (a) keep money in the local economy, and (b) creates local jobs, whereas solution #2 (and #1 for that matter) moves money out of the community.

The clear fiscally responsible choice for universal access is a muni-network, assuming that a sound plan for the operation of the network is created.

Wi-Fi in Wilkes-Barre, PA

2005-07-03T15:32:00.000-04:00

Glenn Fleishman points to an article in the Times-Ledger in Wilkes-Barre, PA about a municipality that wants to provide a city-wide Wi-Fi network. Pennsylvania is one of the dozen or so states that has enacted a law banning such networks, unless certain requirements are met, such as the permission of the incumbent telco provider. Interestingly, Mayor Tom Leighton is gung-ho on the idea of a city-wide Wi-Fi network, and perhaps righly so, though he may be fighting an uphill battle due to the State Law.

There are two important things that I feel need to be clarified in the article, which does a decent job of painting the two sides of the issue. First, there is the the issue of competition:

"In Philadelphia, communications giants Verizon and Comcast have already set up lots of broadband infrastructure in certain parts of the city, and had argued that shouldn't be allowed to knock them out of the business."

Overwhelmingly, municipal network service is not intended as a replacement for existing broadband, at least for the majority of residents. Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner have little to really worry about, especially since they offer service that is (a) faster than municipal wireless, and (b) has more features like content (this is the reason why content companies own media outlets, after all), network protection, backup dial-up access, etc.

Municipal networks also target markets and areas that are ignored or overpriced by large telco and cable companies. As I have written about in the past, even New York City, one of the most connected locations on Earth, has entire segments of the City where broadband infrastructure is poor and non-existent.

Second, there is the telco's expectation about not having competition. Imaging Verizon saying that some other company shouldn't build a broadband infrastructure because they "have already set up lots of broadband infrastructure in certain parts of the city, and [some other company] shouldn't be allowed to knock them out of the business." Well, who gave them preferential treatment? Who says that Verizon has a right to be the exclusive provider of telecom and broadband infrastructure?

The truth of the matter is that Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner all don't like competition of any kind. This is not surprising. However, if they provided a useful service, and were responsive to market changes, they wouldn't have much of a problem with competition. Furthermore, most communities have provided huge subsidies and tax breaks to these companies specifically to "help" them build their infrastructure. Often, this money comes with the requirement to build out infrastructure in all areas of a city or town. Often, telcos and cable companies fail to deliver on their requirements, but take the money nonetheless.

The problem is that they have built themselves up in such a way that they view any competition, municipal or otherwise, as a death sentence.
We as consumers should welcome competition, especially in telecom infrastructure. In fact, it has been shown that even the thread of municipal networks results in better, faster, and cheaper broadband service for everyone.

It is one of the responsibilities of responsible government to help service its residents. If Verizon and Comcast don't provide service to a portion of a municipality's area, then the municipality should have the right to secure the service in those areas in any way it sees fit. I certainly don't know exactly where the internet service has issues in urban Philly, but I'm sure that the Philly government does.

So in the end, any real restriction, state or nationally sponsored, that removes municipal service from the picture, is doing nothing more than supporting the monopoly or duopoly that is currently failing these cities.

Wireless Broadband

2005-06-27T10:20:00.000-04:00

Recently, there has been some press about Verizon's "3G" Broadband Access service. While ubiquitious wireless data services are an important next step in our country's data infrastructure, it puzzles me that we are calling this "Broadband".

Broadband (regardless of the FCC's official definition), should represent significanly faster bandwidth than standard dialup service. But even this isn't the whole story. Broadband specifically refers to a connection's ability to support full motion video and audio at a standard resolution, which a little bit of extra bandwidth to spare. Usually this means a video stream of 320x240.

Macromedia provides a good webpage on some standard video encoding rates: http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/flv_encoding_02.html#calculator

According to this page, a standard low motion video--320x240 at 30 frames per second--should take up at least 800kbps. There are other calculations that can be made for other video and audio encoders, but they are all in the same ballpark for what you'll find on the web.

Here's the thing: Verizon states that the typical speeds for BroadbandAccess are 400-700kbps. This is clearly below what is necessary for standard quarter screen full motion video!

So, when did Broadband become only a few times faster than dialup? I posit that we shouldn't allow anything below 1mbps upstream AND downstream to be called Broadband. Anything else is false advertising.

Speech at City Hall Park

2005-06-26T22:40:00.000-04:00

I was recently asked to speak at City Hall Park in New York City about public wireless and the work that NYCwireless has done. Here's the video, with the transcript following.

NYCwireless was formed in the spring of 2001 to bring free public wireless internet to the people of New York City. As one of the first and most visible Community Wireless Networks, we created the first park hotspot in Tompkins Square Park. We were the first to partner with both public and private organizations to bring freely available internet to dozens of parks and other public spaces like Bryant Park, Union Square Park, and City Hall Park. We created the first Wireless Art Festival, called Spectropolis, which for the past two years celebrated and explored what technology and art can create in an urban environment, bringing the internet off of desktops and onto street corners. And we were one of the first to bring free wireless internet to the homes and apartments of some of the underserved citizens of this city. Like many other things this great city has pioneered, NYCwireless has led the charge for public wireless internet.

What we've accomplished with the help of many New Yorkers is important. We stand now at the beginning of a new era, one where every citizen lives a digital and connected life, where information is available on every street corner, education is available from every park bench, and our friends and family are always only a few button clicks away. And New York is ready to lead the way again. We believe that affordable, universal internet access is no longer a privilege, but a right and necessity for every New Yorker.

We believe that it is the responsibility of our government and each and every citizen to help make this new era come to pass, and applaud all who step up to the challenge. Working together with other organizations, we have seen the great things that free public wireless can bring to all New Yorkers, whether they are students living in the East Village, a family living in the Bronx, or just someone getting back on their feet with a job living in Harlem. New York was the greatest city of the 20th century. Its time for all of us to become the greatest City of the 21st.

Why Mesh-based Wireless Networks Are Ideal for New York

2005-06-22T00:54:00.000-04:00

also published at http://www.nycwireless.net/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=23

Mesh networks are wireless networks, based on Wi-Fi technology, where each wireless "node" or "access point" connects with a number of other wireless nodes. Information flows from node to node, winding up either at its destination or the internet in general. Internet connections, in a mesh-based network, are provided by one or more nodes that connect to the internet directly (referred to as "backhaul").

Robust and reliable, mesh wireless systems offer multiple points of connection to the network and no central tower. Mesh users can bypass obstacles like hills and trees by using different signal paths. Mesh networks are easily expandable at very low cost, and they have no single point of failure. Mesh networks also feature shorter distances between nodes, which means each antenna can broadcast at lower power, creating less interference and allowing more users to communicate simultaneously. (from http://www.freepress.net/wifi/guide2.php)

The benefits of mesh technology are many:

self-organized, dynamic routing and connection
little or no centralized configuration
each node is interchangeable with every other node
overlapping wireless coverage areas ensure that no node is a point of failure
no wires are necessary, as the network is entirely wireless
organic build-out of the entire network is possible
multiple separate networks can be built independently and grow into a single cohesive network
redundant paths to backhaul
easy/seamless addition of additional backhaul

The alternative for wireless networks are "hub-and-spoke" networks, so called because they resemble bicycle wheels in their architectural diagrams. In hub-and-spoke networks there is one central distribution node with which all client nodes communicate. This centralized architecture is like the cell phone networks: even when client nodes are close to one another, they must route through the central tower in order to communicate. This creates a single point of failure, and requires significant infrastructure at these tower nodes.

Mesh networks are designed to survive the failure of a single node (and sometimes more than single node). Like the internet itself, mesh networks have significantly more resiliency built in. Its untrue that they are more likely to go down than non-mesh networks; This is like saying that cars with airbags are more likely to crash. The fact is that mesh networks have extra safeguards from failure, and reduce the likelihood of network failure.

Furthermore, since there is built in overlap between the service area of neighboring mesh nodes, if one should go down, service should still be available in its coverage area (albeit at a possibly lower data rate). Because mesh nodes are interchangeable, servicing the network is as simple as plugging in a new node where one has failed. This isn't nearly so easy to do with a non-mesh network, even one that has a centralized network management system. Mesh networks need no such network management infrastructure, since their management intelligence is built into each node, and is spread dynamically throughout the entire network.

So, what does this mean for New York City? Let's look at a couple of examples, which NYCwireless has had the opportunity to investigate:

In Building Wireless Network

New York City has a plethora of apartment buildings, many of which date from the early or mid parts of the 1900's (and some even earlier). These buildings have electrical and phone systems, but even cable networks are an add on. Creating an additional network is both expensive and difficult for these buildings, since it often requires significant construction to create a complete wired network infrastructure that is safe from the elements. This is the reason why Wi-Fi has been so popular with New Yorkers--cable and DSL modems don't often reside where people want to use their computers.

Using a mesh-based wireless network, such buildings are easy to "light up". Traditional hub-and-spoke wireless networks rely on a distributed wired infrastructure (like cable and DSL networks), whereas the only requirement for a mesh network is electricity. Using a centralized backhaul located in one or a few places in the building, and inexpensive mesh wireless devices, an entire building, servicing 100's of units, can be brought merely by plugging in the nodes at appropriate locations (3-10 per floor, on average).

Since most buildings have thick walls separating apartments or floors, if there is a spot in the building where the wireless signal is weak, just add another mesh node nearby. And since the nodes are usually powerful enough to communicate between adjacent floors, the network will have multiple routes up and down the building, ensuring that even if part of the network goes down, the rest of the network will still work.

Distributing a wired backhaul (T1 or fiber internet connection) throughout a building is cost effective, but it may not even be necessary all of the time. If there is another nearby building with lots of available bandwidth--like a school, library, or even business--setting up a higher-powered mesh node at that location will enable the extra network capacity to be wirelessly beamed into the building through the windows. With this type of network, there might not even be any wired internet at all within the building!

Business District Network

New York City is filled with Business Districts. Whether you live on the south side of Staten Island, Central Harlem, or along Northern Boulevard in Queens, there are plenty of areas where small businesses (and sometimes large ones) line the streets for blocks on end. Especially for small businesses, bringing in an internet connection can be both costly and time consuming (waits of months for a T1 are not unheard of). Considering that many small businesses would rather place their resources into running and building their shops, spending all of that time and money, month over month, on simple internet access can be a wasteful investment.

Creating a wireless hotspot all along a business district benefits residents, businesses, and visitors to that area. This is the primary reason why the Alliance for Downtown New York partnered with NYCwireless to help create its wireless network in downtown Manhattan, and why other Business Improvement Districts (BID) and Parks have worked with NYCwireless in similar capacities. Creating a hotspot that exists outside (throughout the cold New York winter) is hard enough. Creating a hotspot, using traditional non-mesh wireless technologies, that is larger than a standard City block is even harder. Consider that such a hotspot likely needs more than one DSL connection, that its hardware must be mounted outdoors, and that if a local business is a participating host for all or part of the network, that the network becomes dependent upon that business staying in that location for years on end.

All of these difficulties are easily solved by using a mesh network. Instead of mounting the hotspot access point and large antenna on the top of a short building, the multiple nodes of the mesh network can be mounted inside or next to local storefronts, lining the street. Backhaul can reside inside of a building where it is easy to get to, and more DSL lines can be added as needed. Since there are more mesh nodes than the few traditional access points, coverage is better.

The best part of this architecture is that the business district network no longer is reliant on one or a couple of businesses. Instead, the backhaul can be provided by a long-standing resident of the area--most likely a BID or City organization--and the network can flow down the street. As local businesses come and go, the BID can merely unplug a mesh node from a departing business, and plug it in next door. The network continues to operate, and service never has to go down for more than a few minutes (if even that). In this type of community architecture, a traditional hub-and-spoke network would be unmanageable.

City-wide Network

New York City represents a great challenge for any wireless network. The dense metropolitan area covers about 240 square miles, and much of that area is covered by buildings 20 or more stories in height. New York is truly a huge, three dimensional city.

Creating a large scale wireless network throughout New York represents a great challenge--one that NYCwireless would love to help solve. In all likelihood, any solution that makes this endeavor tractable will need to make use of multiple network technologies, and combine network deployments from a number of providers. To be sure, New York will require more ingenuity than that of Philadelphia's, San Francisco's, and Boston's wireless city plans.

Here again, mesh networks can play multiple roles. Nodes can disburse wireless internet backhaul from the city's dark fiber and existing excess bandwidth via a mesh network mounted on lamp posts. That network can feed separate mesh networks that draw the internet up into and throughout a building like a tree drinks water. And people and businesses can move their lives and their livelihoods from building to building without causing network disturbances.

With the help of mesh networks, New York can become a living, organic city, whose lifeblood is the packets of information that flows freely from point to point, person to person, bouncing around automatically finding its way to and from the internet.