The Municipal Wireless Dilemma

By Stacey McDaniel

With costs of entry dropping and standards becoming more stable, making wireless Internet connections is easier than ever. That's why hotels, airports, coffee shops, and shopping malls have responded by offering Wi-Fi service to their customers. Wireless networks have also been deployed on corporate and college campuses, and in the downtown areas of some cities. Now, some cities are taking the next step with plans to offer city-wide wireless access to their citizens. Offering wireless coverage for an entire city is a major undertaking, and interested cities are still figuring out how it will work, and who will pay for it.

Municipal wireless networks that provide access for police, firefighters, building inspectors, and meter readers are already in place in many cities. What's new on the scene are municipal wireless networks that are intended for public access, and that in many cases will replace or compete with services offered by private Internet service providers. This is a relatively new trend, and it has yet to be determined whether cities are in a position to double as wireless providers.

Why offer wireless?

• Perpetuating E-Government   Ever since the advent of "E-Government," cities have felt increased pressure to be more technologically savvy and citizen-friendly. Offering wireless access is seen as an extension of E-Government because it improves public services and gives citizens a tangible and helpful service.



• New revenue stream  Charging citizens for wireless access has been discussed in some cities, as has charging tourists and visiting business people in order to raise money to fund the access. Some communities hope to make a profit, and view wireless as a new way to bring money into their city or town.



• Economic development edge  Offering wireless access is also a way for municipalities to appear progressive and interested in their citizens' needs. Many cities hope to benefit from the additional business they believe widespread wireless coverage will attract. More business usually means more government revenue in the form of business taxes, property licenses, and other fees.

Barriers to city-wide wireless

• Competing with private interests  Many local governments have encountered resistance from high-speed broadband service providers, which believe such moves encroach on their business. The dilemma: determining whether wireless Internet access can be considered a utility and, if so, whether government has a right to provide a service that competes with the private sector.



• Coverage problems  Wi-Fi was originally designed for use in small home and office networks, not for the large-scale deployment that some cities and towns are planning. An average maximum operating range of 300 feet from a single access point means that one or more access points must be installed on every block, and in unobstructed reception locations, to provide universal coverage. Maintaining a strong city-wide wireless signal may become difficult.



• Security While progress has been made developing security standards for wireless networks, cities must take steps to ensure that that security is effective. Proactive and comprehensive protection is called for.

Who pays?

With other public amenities, such as trash collection, the city absorbs the cost, or makes up for it through taxes. Some cities that are actively building wireless networks, such as Philadelphia and Chaska, Minnesota, plan to offer wireless coverage at a reduced cost -- below $20 per month for most citizens. The low prices will enable people from more economic levels to have access, and the city will recover its costs at the same time.

A more hands-off approach, already being tried in some places, is a public/private partnership that involves contracting out the installation and management of the wireless network to a private company. In this situation, the private company takes care of the technology as well as the customer service and billing needs of an entire city.

Examples of municipal wireless

Several small and midsize cities have successfully rolled out wireless networks without much opposition, while larger cities like Philadelphia have experienced highly publicized conflicts with broadband providers. In most of the 20 or so cities that have built wireless networks for public use, the municipal utility company also acts as the service provider.

In fall 2004, Philadelphia began executing its plan to become the first large city in the U.S. to provide city-wide wireless Internet access. Like many other large cities, Philadelphia has been trying to re-energize its inner-city neighborhoods, and hoping that offering wireless technology to all residents will help. Such a network would cover the entire city by 2006, and cost about $20 per household per month ($240/year) -- instead of $700 per year for DSL or cable, or $2,000 for fiber optic cable. But Philadelphia met resistance from Verizon, which provides DSL services in the region. The city was finally able to proceed with its network after lawyers negotiated an agreement with Verizon that it won't try to block the rollout of the network.

The future

If the Philadelphia case is any example, then the battle it encountered may prevent other cities from going completely wireless. After Verizon and Philadelphia city officials struck the deal to allow city-run wireless, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell signed a bill into law that let Verizon block other Pennsylvania cities from providing wireless Internet access to citizens as long as the company provides fast Internet access to the entire state by 2015. Pennsylvania is one of 14 states that have enacted legislation restricting cities from offering wireless services directly to citizens. While most of the 14 states' laws permit cities to provide coverage to business and technology centers, city-wide access is restricted.

Legal restrictions aside, as long as wireless continues to get cheaper and easier to deploy, more cities will seek ways to provide access, especially if they are able to offer citizens access at a much lower cost than private companies. Not only that, but as wireless networks continue to proliferate, citizens may begin to view Internet access as a utility like water or electricity and expect their city to offer it. Many view the wireless undertaking as a 21st-century counterpart to the early 20th-century public projects to build roads and highways -- realizing the importance that technology plays in our everyday lives now. Over the next couple of years, many more cities will embark on plans to offer wireless access, and it will be interesting to see if these public-run networks fail or succeed.

Stacey McDaniel has been writing about high-tech issues for more than six years.