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Given Boston’s recent history with large public projects ( Big Dig anyone? ) I am not too excited by the news that came out yesterday that Boston is looking at building a muni wifi network.  To me it is news enough that yet another big municipality is looking at wireless as an alternative to the telcos lock on high speed internet access.  According to the AP article there are now more than 250 communities nationwide that are deploying muni wifi’s.

Muni wifis will play a big role in the Net Neutrality debate.  The more muni wifi becomes a viable alternative to telco isp’s the lest likely the telcos are to move forward with tiering.

Wherever Verizon deploys their FiOS fiber service they will become the de facto internet provider.  One of the only possible competitors for fiber isp’s is a muni WiMax of WiFi network.

Posted by Tom at 06:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The New York Times has a short write up today about Marshall Brown, the guy behind the NYC WiFi in the parks.  Brown, a geek, former Harvard teacher, and now internet entrepreneur, says: “the end point is that all the major cities are covered by the Internet umbrella, there is world-pervasive computerization, and people get all content all the time.”

Check out the times to read more: A Visionary Seeking to Connect the World, Wirelessly (free reg required)

Posted by Tom at 07:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)

Katie Fehrenbacher attended a training session for Google’s WiFi service in Mountain View California last night.  Google’s WiFi is entering the testing phase now but Om reports that they hope to have the official launch day during the “summer of 2006”.

More and more cities and towns around the country are building WiFi networks.  In New Jersey Summit seems to be the city closest to ours that is exploring WiFi.  Summit is looking to contract with a third party wireless provider to build and run the network at no cost to Summit taxpayers.  In response to their Request for Information Summit received responses from many nationally recognized wireless companies.

I’ll be following Summit’s progress closely and be especially on the lookout for Verizon’s reaction.  Hopefully they won’t do anything to hinder their progress.

Posted by Tom at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to this article on CNET, part of the giant Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act approved by the Senate Commerce Committee yesterday with a 15-7 vote includes provisions that would prevent states from enacting laws that would prevent municipalities from selling their own broadband service.

As the article says: states including Florida, Texas, Virginia and Pennsylvania have enacted laws intended to curb those projects (like municipal Wi-Fi), measures that are often backed by companies like Verizon and Comcast.

Municipal broadband, especially wireless, should be of interest to Net Neutrality proponents.  In areas serviced by a fiber provider the only real foreseeable competition for the fiber ISP would be municipal Wi-FI.  The telcos know this; that is why they have fought so hard for state laws banning towns from building muni-Wi-Fis.  Access Tiering plans can only work if the ISPs do not have real competition. 

In a town served by a fiber provider and a muni-wireless consumers would have a real choice of ISPs.  In that kind of environment it is hard to see either ISP cordoning off portions of their bandwidth for third party use.  In other words the competition would help protect Net Neutrality.

That is one of the reasons I am following the progress made by Summit NJ on their muni-WiFi project.  It is also one of the reason why I want Red Bank to ask Verizon how they would react to a Red Bank muni-wifi.

Posted by Tom at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Summit WiFI RFI responses were due last Friday.  Has anyone seen anything published about the responses yet?  Thanks -- Tom

Posted by Tom at 06:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During sporting events the television broadcasters all like to take time out to do what the call a “Game Reset”, it’s a quick way of recapping the events of the game and getting new viewers up to date.  Now would seem like a good time to do something similar here on the blog.  So without further ado I present RedBankTv.org’s blog reset:

Local Franchise Summary – Red Bank has approved Verizon’s application to operate a cable TV franchise and Verizon’s application has been forwared onto the NJ State Board of Public Utilities for final approval; after gaining the BPU approval Verizion will enter franchise negotiations with Red Bank.

State and Federal Franchise Regulation – Verizon has spent untold millions of dollars lobbying for new legislation at the State and Federal level that removes the requirement to work with local municipalities on cable franchises.  What has been the result of their big spending?  You guessed it; New Jersey’s legislature has passed a state wide cable franchise bill and it is now awaiting Gov. Corzine’s signature.  With pockets as deep as Verizon’s why should they stop at the state level?  Well, they haven’t and their lobbying efforts are paying off big at the federal level as well.  Steadily moving through the House and Senate are bills that would remove the need to work with towns or states on franchises.  The federal legislation looks set to pass and, depending on just how much Verizon wants to spend, it looks likely to pass in the few remaining sessions of this year.

A La Carte cable plans – Senator John McCain has introduced a bill calling for A La Carte cable plans, the FCC supports Sen. McCain’s bill and a Verizon spokesman was recently quoted as saying that A La Carte cable plans could offer them a competitive advantage to other cable companies.  That all sounds good but realistically no real progress has been made on this issue.

Municipal WiFi – It seems to me that the most interesting item to follow regarding Verizon and municipal WiFi’s has to be what is going on in Summit NJ.  Summit sent their RFI to Verizon and responses to the RFI are due in the coming week.  I’ve been corresponding with someone involved in the Summit project and I hope that she will keep me up to date with their progress.  If Verizon responds to the RFI it should tell us what tack they will be taking to discourage municipalities from getting into the WiFi game.

Net Neutrality – This topic has been all over the news as of late.  There is a continuing ill fated effort to put federal legislation in place to guarantee Net Neutrality.  The reality is that the telcos lobbying machine is too powerful for Congress to do anything other than pay lip service to Net Neutrality legislation.  I continue to advocate that efforts be made to raise Net Neutrality as a local issue and to tie it to Cable TV franchises.  So far there has been little reaction to my method.

Posted by Tom at 06:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Summit NJ is a small town that is similar in many ways to Red Bank. Over a year ago Summit started formally looking into municipal Wi-Fi by forming a committee to research the topic.  In May, after much hard work by their Wi-Fi committee, Summit put out a public Request For Information (RFI) on construction of a muni Wi-Fi.

Here is Summit’s “Vision” taken from their RFI

The City of Summit envisions selecting a commercial vendor to plan, install and operate a wireless broadband networking environment throughout the City where our citizens and businesses, community service and non-profit organizations, -- whether operating in their homes, places of business, in open spaces such as parks, recreation areas, and throughout our downtown business district – have reliable, always available, high speed wireless “ready access” to the Internet at reasonable costs. The City of Summit views this project as an opportunity to provide Internet access for its citizens throughout the city while reducing the City’s communications costs, improving the delivery services to residents and improving access to City Hall. The project will increase consumer choice and affordability while promoting digital inclusion for families who cannot currently afford internet access or any access at all. At the same time the Principle Vendor we seek will recommend profit sharing and revenue generating opportunities for the City of Summit. However, the City expects that the full cost of the project will be borne by the selected Principle Vendor, without any City funding.

Their 12 page RFI goes into more detail and it can be read by clicking on this link

I have contacted Summit and asked them what Verizon’s response to their plan has been.  Summit’s project admisitrator told me that they have asked Verizon to respond to their RFI and she feels that Verizon can see that the train has left the station and it makes no sense to oppose muni Wi-Fi’s; I hope she is right.  I’ll be following Summit’s progress closely with an eye towards what we in Red Bank can learn from them.

Posted by Tom at 06:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An editorial in today’s (6/6/6) New York Times talks about municipal Wi-Fi networks.  Their editorial calls for New York to get into the Wi-Fi game.  The NYT talks about how local municipalities are leading the muni Wi-Fi movement.

Here is a blurb from the editorial:

Local governments are filling a leadership void at the federal and state levels, and they are going directly to providers to negotiate Wi-Fi deals. San Francisco's mayor has turned to Earthlink and Google. Earthlink, based in Atlanta, is also helping Philadelphia. In some of these deals, lower-speed connections are free, with higher speeds available at a price. The providers also hope to make money off advertising.

The editorial does not touch on telcos, such as Verizon, opposition to muni Wi-Fis but that fact that a major newspaper is calling for another major city to start looking into Wi-Fi should tell us that we should, at the least, be asking Verizon if they would oppose a Red Bank muni Wi-Fi

Posted by Tom at 06:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (65)

This comes via engadget: via RCR Wireless news

EarthLink to build Wi-Fi network for New Orleans

And EarthLink’s strategy paid off, as the New Orleans City Council approved an ordinance for the company to build a 15 square-mile Wi-Fi network to replace the city-owned network.

The telcos just don't get it. -- Tom

Posted by Tom at 06:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This morning I’ve seen several references to a blog in Phoenix that lists the available broadband options in the area.

The poster, Jim Lippard, lists several DSLs, a cable company, a satellite provider, a couple of celluar providers and the municipal wifi network as options.

The problem with Jim’s list is that out of all of the options that he lists there is only one that could have a chance to deliver the same kind of bandwidth that Verizon’s FiOS can.  That would be the municipal wifi network.  Verizon knows this; that’s why they’ve fought to block municipal wifi’s around the country.  That’s why we need to keep muni-wifi as an option here in Red Bank.

I subscribe to Verizon’s FiOS service.  I’ve had dial-up, isdn, dsl and cable internet service.  Jim let me tell you, nothing touches what Verizon is providing over their fiber to the home network.  As the only fiber provider in my town I predict that they will become the defacto internet service provider in my area.  Their service is that much better.

That’s why I am concerned about Verizon’s statements about Net Neutrality.  I think their “slow” tier will still be faster than the other options we have in town so there would be no reason for consumers to switch to competitors once Verizon starts putting preferred providers on their “fast” tier and leaving the rest on their “slow” tier.

The only possible competition from Verizon would come from someone buying up “dark” fiber and creating their own internet backbone and providing the last mile via WiMax.

That is why we need to push Verizon in our town to respect Net Netruality and to not oppose a municipal wifi.

Posted by Tom at 06:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Houston is joining the list of municipalities setting up a city wide wireless internet network.  This blog chronicles a conference call given by Mayor White of Houston this past Monday.  I don’t think Verizon reaches that far down south, I’m not sure.  I’d love to find out if Verizon is playing a role in Houston’s WiFi effort.

Posted by Tom at 05:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The city of Winston Salem South Carolina published its formal Request for Proposal for a city wide wireless plan on Monday.  The entire RFP can be found here.  http://www.winstonnet.org/wireless_initiative/documents/rfp.doc

Posted by Tom at 06:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Thank you to Esme Vos at MuniWireless.com for pointing me to a letter to the editor written by a Verizon VP in which he states that Verizon is not against municipal WiFi networks. 

Writing in response to an article by John M. Eger titled: Freeing Cities From Telco and Cable Monopolies on the website Government Tech, Verizon Communications vice president state and local government, Walter White, states Verizon’s positions on municipal wireless networks.

Mr White plainly states in his response: Verizon is not against muni Wi-Fi.  Mr. White then goes on to make Verizon’s case that in the current fiscal and technological environment that municipality owned and run Wi-Fi do not make sense.  Whether or not muni Wi-Fi’s make sense right now isn’t really my issue; I agree that Red Bank would have to take a hard look at a muni Wi-Fi before building one.  My question is: Would Verizon oppose a Red Bank municipal Wi-Fi network?  Mr. White says no.

It would seem that Verizon should be able to provide a short simple written answer this question if Red Bank formally asks it.  Our town council should ask this question.

Posted by Tom at 05:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)