Free Wireless??

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

Hi All,

I remember hearing a while ago that parts of Somerville and Cambridge would be getting free wifi in conjunction with MIT and Harvard. Any idea if and when this might happen? Additionally, I'm wondering how it would work?

Comments

Mayor Joe mentioned this in his inaugural address

[winterhill.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how this will work, but our Mayor said it is going to happen in 2008.

[rethcir.livejournal.com]

I think that you can pick up the "harvard air" wifi hotspot around harvard square and log in as a guest.

[autumnsshadow.livejournal.com]

Same with MIT(at least in Kendall, anyway).

[sagenepal.livejournal.com]

I believe that it was called "Cambridge Public Internet" but that Cambridge dropped it. MIT has a project called "RoofNet" that I think is still operating to some extent. In fact, I know that the Newtowne Court area of housing project nearby MIT has wireless coverage from this project. You can see the wireless boxes on the rooftops and in some windows.

[sagenepal.livejournal.com]

In fact, here is a link about MIT RoofNet:
http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/roofnet/doku.php

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

We are indeed working on this, but the business model and the provider community keep changing on us, so the definition of the best approach has proved to be a rapidly moving target. If we did it ourselves -- just building off our current fiber access points (FAPs in industry jargon) -- we could cover MOST of the city without pulling more fiber, but we would be on the hook for installation and maintenance of the nodes, and we'd be our own ISP. We might actually have the bandwidth to handle that approach in the not-too-distant future, but it would still be a major cost and operational undertaking for a city that's perpetually strapped for cash. (Cambridge can spend about 50 percent more per capita than Somerville each year, and THEY think it's too expensive.)

There are a number of providers who would wire the city for us if we promised to be an "anchor tenant" and give them a hefty annual fee -- and if we allowed them to be the sole ISP that offered hi-speed connectivity through the resulting network. But would they also be willing to operate a "free," ad-driven portal that gave unrestricted access in, say, the 800KB per second speed range? Some might, others wouldn't. Would they "wholesale" bandwidth to anybody who wanted it -- a sort of a local version of Net Neutrality? Once again, some probably would while others wouldn't.

The Mayor has, however, given us marching orders to come up with a plan before mid-year, and to begin implementation as soon as possible thereafter.

I will post links to any RFPs, RFIs or RFQs as they are issued by the IT Dept.

In the meantime, I understand that Starbucks will be offering free Wi-Fi to some customers at some times of day:

http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9062059

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info, Tom. Helpful as always.

If I may ask, what is the city's interest in providing such a service? I mean, it's a very nice thing to do and all, but it seems like a real perk, especially when there are (imho, anyway) greater needs for things that we can't afford, especially with the upcoming budget cuts.

(This isn't an attack by any means, I'm honestly wondering. I can see if it was financed by some company who made their money through ads, but other than that...)

[tomchampion.livejournal.com]

IF we can do this at little or no cost to taxpayers, and IF we can help close the very real 'digital divide" by providing free, good (but not blazing) web access to everyone on the city -- and IF we can get a couple of free hot spots for key business districts -- and IF we can have an installed wi-fi base that serves our public safety vehicles (which currently must use aircards)-- and IF we end up with a "open" network on which anyone can buy bandwidth and sell wireless services to any customer anywhere in the city -- THEN it's a truly worthy undertaking.

That is, of course, a whole lot of "ifs." But not so long ago, it looked like that was exactly the kind of thing that was starting to happen around the country. (See: http://www.portlandonline.com/index.cfm?c=43147 )

More recently, however, many cities and vendor/partners like Earthlink are now rethinking or abandoning what were once big plans. ( http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3726981 ,
http://www.dailyfreeman.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19231177&BRD=1769&PAG=461&dept_id=74969&rfi=6 ,
http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/2007-05-21_apwire_2nd_guessing.pdf )

Somerville may have some unusual advantages: we're small but densely packed and we don't have a lot of brick or steel high-rises. We may be easy enough to "unwire" that we can still drive a cost-effective bargain.

So ,in the end, the answer to your question is that citywide Wi-Fi is in everyone's interest if it can be done inexpensively -- or maybe even for free. But you're right in thinking that, despite real social, educational and business development advantages, there's a limit to the resources we can invest in citywide Wi-Fi.

Still, this Mayor has already shown (with a major reinvestment n public safety, with SomerStat, Connect CTY, an expanded parks program, an ambitious environmental policy, and improved schools) that he has actually figured out how to do more with less. So don't count him out yet.

[sagenepal.livejournal.com]

Here's a link to the City of Cambridge pilot for Cambridge Public Internet:
http://www.cambridgema.gov/wifi/index.cfm

It's very interesting to see their plan, but what I have heard from a person directly involved with creating it, the City of Cambridge seems to have pulled their support from it -- not because it wasn't working technically, but who knows why. The pilot is still up and running in Newtowne Court and a path up Broadway, I think.

Thanks, Tom, for the links and the philosophizing on the future of municipal wireless. I agree with you wholeheartedly, that it could still work, but maybe not on a for-profit model.

I think there are ways to make muni wireless work for a lot less than the budgets proposed in the past. Take a look at the FunkFeuer network in Vienna: http://www.funkfeuer.at/ 400 nodes and growing, for very little money. No government support, just a bunch of people who got together and did it on their free time. Or Berlin's FreiFunk network... same thing.

It doesn't take very much bandwidth - abotu 6Mbps is good for FunkFeuer's 400 users. The mesh topology is pretty simple and lets the network grow organically, and not from a central agency.

On the 20th of February (this coming Wednesday), there will be a little talk about mesh networking for anyone interested:
http://www.blu.org/cgi-bin/calendar/2008-feb

[duffless2323.livejournal.com]

Hi Tom,

I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy day to not only just answer the question, but to explain the bigger picture and go into a ton of detail. I really appreciate your posts on this board.

[303-5.livejournal.com]

The "digital divide" likely is greater than many realize if you look at it broadly. We are paying for the "top tier" of internet service provided by RCN and lately--despite repeated support calls and service visits--I can rarely get a working internet connection (and I am certain the problem is on their end). The only thing holding me back from switching to Comcast is the equal number of horror stories about their service, though I will likely try to make the switch next week. A free or low-cost citywide wireless connection available as a "backup" for those already paying for service from unreliable providers would be a great benefit to many of us.

Thanks for your efforts on this issue.

-Bob

[masswich.livejournal.com]

Brookline has a town-wide wireless network that was put up in the past year or so using Galaxy as a provider, at little or no cost to the town. It is free for slower use for up to an hour a day, and then fee-based at higher speeds and unlimited time. I also think it is free in certain public locations like parks. Coverage is pretty good- its provided through small boxes on the cobra streetlights and then relaying back to 3 central locations (one on the top of Town Hall.)

Their web site has more info on it:

http://www.brooklinewireless.com/

What's in it for the Town? Good coverage for emergency providers for free and other EMT-type uses. Cell phone coverage in the town is not so great so this provides a good backbone for communications systems.

It would be great if our fair city did something similar.

[sagenepal.livejournal.com]

I think that it's a worthwhile thing for a city to do -- provide free wireless, that is. The digital divide is real. A lot of people just can't afford to pay 30 to 60 dollars a month for an Internet connection. Some place don't even have access to DSL lines and they would have to use a cable connection at the high end of the range that I just mentioned. The other alternative is to use a dial-up line, or else leave your house and pay money in a cafe or walk to a library.

I think that having Internet access can be a benefit especially to kids who are in school, and need to do their homework with the same kind of advantages that other kids have, in families with Internet. It's a baseline to be able to Google or use other reference material when writing reports and doing homework.

The Castle Square tenant's organization in Boston has come up with a wireless network for themselves. It's based on a mesh network that gets a DSL signal from a few hundred yards away. It's used by the kids and adults in the apartments for all kinds of purposes.

I think that given the resources we have a society, that with the right kind of organization, we could be providing this kind of wireless service to many more people at a cost that is pretty small. I think it will just take focus, and development of some basic technologies to make them more user friendly.

By the way, the Castle Square folks have also created a program to refurbish old computers and put Windows and Linux on them, for people to buy for $15 or so. Because a computer is not a given in many households, either.

[sagenepal.livejournal.com]

More info on the Castle Square network:
http://www.cstowifi.org/doku.php