WCN blog

The City of Chicago released a draft RFP for a municipal wireless network on May 30th. There will be a two week comment period for residents and organizations to provide feedback. Make sure to read the draft and send your feedback to the city.

Click here to read the draft RFP

The City of Chicago announced that they will be releasing an RFP for a Wireless Broadband Network in late Spring. Who ever wins the bid to deploy the network will be responsible for the financing, installation and management of a for the City of Chicago.

“Please note that Chicago is not seeking to create a municipally-owned utility - it will not own the network, nor will it maintain, operate, upgrade or support the customers who use it.”

At the beginning of May a draft of the RFP will be available online for comments and suggested improvements.

Daniel Berninger - “Net neutrality means don’t tread on the Internet!”

Companies selling Internet access argue for property rights as the basis for unwinding long standing net neutrality. However, the companies deriving revenues from Internet access do not own the Internet any more than a company making money from a port owns the ocean. No one entity public or private can own the Internet as in the case of an ocean. An Internet access provider does not assume ownership of the content of communication transiting its network any more than a port assumes ownership of packages loaded onto ships. The Internet access provider like a shipper can assess risks in the sense of whether a package contains liquids, perishables, or hazardous material, but customers reserve the right make decisions about the nature of transport. The telephone network implementation of network neutrality known as common carrier rules prevent AT&T from discriminating against particular users. They prevent Verizon from asking about the purpose of a call before connecting it.

Net neutrality prevents discrimination by limiting billing for transport to generic measures of performance and capacity rather than the nature of the user or usage. Neutrality allows for Internet enabled alternatives to monopolist voice and video providers that also happen to dominate Internet access, so the desire to end neutrality, even if it leads to the death of the Internet, comes as no surprise. Limits on business models pursued by Verizon or AT&T will get criticized as socialism, but government has never escaped the need to assert non-discrimination principles to facilitate commerce. The issues surrounding the present net neutrality debate have arisen with different labels since the Roman Empire. The desire to discriminate against particular users or usage as the means to defeat competition or other nefarious purpose arises in communication (telegraph, telephone, and Internet); transportation (railroads, highways, taxi cabs, and buses); and supporting facilities (hotels, restaurants, gas stations.)

The magnitude of alarm arises from the lack of market forces to discipline anti-customer activities of dominant providers of broadband in the US. A market has to exist for market forces to work. The idea of a telco taking kickbacks to distort Internet access experience would not present much of a problem if alternative suppliers existed. Changing Internet access providers in the US involves moving to a different state. Craig McCaw’s wireless startup Clearwire implements a non-neutral policy in a financial arrangement that gives Bell Canada’s VoIP offer special status while requiring that non-affiliated VoIP companies submit to certification. Ed Whitacre’s AT&T announced a special Internet access offer for VoIP companies. The deal conveniently preserves the usage based access fees in exchange for some undefined quality of service benefit. AT&T’s plans represent more of a problem than Clearwire’s, because AT&T can enforce its certification demands.

Opposition to net neutrality arises to preserve market power in the $300bn voice market not the pursuit of “investment incentives” necessary to improve US broadband penetration rates. AT&T and Verizon claim to need new sources of revenue to fund the “billions and billions” it costs to expand their access networks, but the poor performance of the US broadband ranking traces to the expense of broadband offers not availability. Broadband penetration rankings reflect the cost of broadband around the world. AT&T et al already extract more revenue per bit than carriers in other countries. The proposal of a new revenue stream from advertisers or Google et al will decrease not increase penetration rates. Pew Internet & American Life polls show annual growth in percentage of people with access to the Internet (broadband and dial-up) in the US has already nearly stopped. Ending net neutrality will only reduce the number of people interested in access to the Internet.

Proposals do not even clearly yield a net increase in revenues as implementing a non-neutral policy makes networks less valuable to end users at the same time it makes them more expensive to build and operate. The loss of net neutrality means the Bells would likely end up paying for some content as the price of getting paid for distribution of other content. Neutrality works in both directions. It prevents content and application companies from using their market power. The absence of common carrier status means the cable companies pay for content as Verizon already discovered in a video deal with CBS. Costs go up with the complexity of tying revenue to usage and users to the point where implementation of billing could easily cost more than the underlying service. Loss of net neutrality means the loss of the inherent liability protection. Carriers can not be held liable for illegal uses of their networks to the extent they don’t control use or user. The loss of net neutrality in access will trigger expensive re-negotiation with uncertain outcome of all the network interconnect agreements associated with the “inter” in Internet.

The requirement of accepting all users and all uses on non-discriminatory terms does not foreclose offering different quality of service tiers or non-neutral policies in the name of network management. Quality of service tiers already exist in terms of reliability, performance, and bandwidth, although quality of service guarantees through bandwidth reservation remain a function of private networks. The complexity of business and technical implementations and inherent inefficiencies in bandwidth utilization not net neutrality prevent the extension of quality of service guarantees between networks. Network access providers limit distribution or charge extra for IP addresses, block port 25 use for outbound SMTP, assert narrow Acceptable Use Policies, and consider heavy usage cause for termination. The policies do not violate net neutrality where there exists a plausible linkage to network risks. Net neutrality means users get to choose level of service. In other words, Verizon can’t force one group or another sit at the back of the bus if Google or Amazon refuse to pay a protection fee.

The track record of communication policy apparatus in serving corporate interests over the public interest underlies a sadly compelling argument against making net neutrality rules enforceable. Ironically, government facilitated the accumulation of Bell company market power by granting risk free funding of infrastructure through exclusive monopoly, priceless unconstrained access to public rights-of-way, as well as, no cost spectrum to launch wireless divisions in the 80’s. Consider the speed of Congressional action when Verizon and AT&T say they need national video franchise rights. Consider the fact that Verizon quickly turns to FCC when it finds cable companies pursue non-neutral advertising policies. The Bells point to the failure of communication policy as rationale for yet more concessions rather than admiting a connection to twenty years of incremental regulatory relief. The alignment of government with the monopoly Bells drives up the cost of broadband in the US and slows economic growth no less than the much discussed high cost of energy.

The survival of net neutrality depends on the undemonstrated ability of citizens to get engaged in communication policy developments. The long legal history of common carriage provisions in communications provides a framework to push back in the courts. Entrepreneurs will do their part by creating businesses that probe every weakness in the Bellco defenses. The relative expense of broadband continues to throttle growth of the info tech industry, but info tech appears divided between defending the Internet and reluctance to challenge powerful anti-Internet forces. A letter pushing for strong enforcement of net neutrality sent to Commerce Committee Chairman Barton by the CEO’s of Amazon, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and eBay keeps hope alive. Its seems at least possible average citizens will mobilize like they have in the past when essential freedoms come under threat and rally around a flag that reads “Don’t tread on the Internet!”

By Leslie Walker Washington Post Staff Writer

While growth is slowing at most top Internet sites, it is skyrocketing at sites focused on social networking, blogging and local information.

The dramatic success of those Internet categories is apparent from a recent online-traffic analysis provided by market research firm ComScore Media Metrix, which examined visitor growth rates among the 50 top Web sites over the past year.

Top-ranked sites growing the most, ComScore’s data showed, were Blogger.com, a personal publishing site; MySpace.com, where young people do virtual preening and share musical tastes; Wikipedia, an open reference site jointly edited by millions of people; and Citysearch, a network of local guides focused on cities.

The number of monthly visitors to each site rose at rates ranging from 185 percent (Citysearch) to 528 percent (Blogger.com) between February 2005 and February 2006. Their growth far exceeded the 4 percent increase in overall Internet visitors in the United States during that period.

The traffic analysis shows the Internet is still a space where new brands such as MySpace can suddenly break into the upper ranks, where older brands such as Citysearch can revive themselves after languishing for years, and where established outfits such as Google often wind up as beneficiaries because they buy or copy services pioneered by upstarts.

Google Inc., for instance, bought Blogger.com in 2003; the number of people posting or reading material at that site jumped to 15.6 million last month from 2.5 million a year ago.

“The growth in blogging reminds us the Internet is fulfilling its original promise about participation,” said Gary Arlen, a research analyst and president of Arlen Communications Inc. “This medium empowers users in such a way that they can do what they want and be heard.”

Peter Daboll, president and chief executive of ComScore Media Metrix, said one notable recent traffic trend is increased popularity of sites helping people find local information: “Things having to do with local search are really gaining momentum.”

In addition to Citysearch, a network devoted to local entertainment and commerce, Daboll said, two local directories made the Web’s top 50 last month, WhitePages.com and Verizon’s Superpages.com.

Citysearch, which is owned by IAC/InterActive Corp., recently announced its first full year of profitability, thanks to its increase in ad sales. And the Kelsey Group, a Princeton, N.J., consulting firm specializing in local advertising, projects that ads relating to locally focused Internet searches will become a $6.1 billion market within five years.

Greg Sterling, an independent analyst, said local Internet services lagged behind their national counterparts for years but are finally coming on strong because they are much better today and people are more aware of their utility. “This is stuff people need and want in their everyday lives,” Sterling said, “and to the extent they can find it online, they are starting to use these tools.”

ComScore usually lumps together sites owned by the same firm in its Internet traffic reports, so AOL’s visitors, for example, would be merged with those of other sites owned by Time Warner Inc. But The Washington Post asked ComScore to break out traffic for the Web’s top 50 individual sites to get an idea of which were gaining and losing momentum.

The analysis showed that the Internet’s biggest brands have plenty of staying power or at least are keeping pace with growth in the overall online population. Yahoo retains the largest audience in the United States, though its visitor growth slowed to about 5 percent last year.

Google was the only mega-site bucking the trend, with its users shooting up 21 percent in the past year. Not only has Google steadily expanded its share of the market for Web search, ComScore found, but it also has been attracting new users by expanding into other services offered by rivals, such as e-mail, mapping and personal publishing. If you combine traffic to all the properties it owns, including Blogger.com, Google’s total audience jumped 27 percent last year, ComScore found.

A customer at a cafe in San Francisco uses its wireless Internet access. Traffic at social-networking sites such as MySpace.com, which caters to young users, boomed in 2005. A customer at a cafe in San Francisco uses its wireless Internet access. Traffic at social-networking sites such as MySpace.com, which caters to young users, boomed in 2005. (By Justin Sullivan — Getty Images) Data

* Top Web Domains  Statistics from online-traffic analysis by market research firm ComScore Media Metrix.

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The total audience for all of Time Warner’s Internet properties, including AOL’s various online services, showed little or no growth. Neither did the total audience for Microsoft Corp.’s collective Internet services, though some discrete services did well.

AOL’s Mapquest.com, for example, pulled 7 percent more visitors in February this year compared with last.

One of the more dramatic growth stories was MySpace, which pulled 37 million visitors last month, 28 million more than a year ago. That gave it a ranking of No. 10 among all sites in the United States, according to ComScore.

Usage data for MySpace suggests an even higher popularity ranking: Based on total pages viewed and the time spent by each visitor, MySpace ranked No. 2 on the entire Internet, right behind Yahoo.

After Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million last summer, the site made headlines when some men were arrested and charged with assaulting girls they had identified on the site. Since then, News Corp. has been working feverishly to improve safety on MySpace by screening photos for pornography and removing profiles of underage users.

Joining MySpace on the fast track was Wikipedia, the open encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Its traffic soared 275 percent last year following widespread media play over the posting of fake biographical material and similar controversies regarding the site’s accuracy.

Wed Apr 19, 2006 1:05am ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly half of U.S. users of the Internet went online for help with major life decisions such as finding a college for their child or looking for a new place to live, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

The results show that the Internet is becoming increasingly important to users in their everyday lives, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a non-profit group which conducted the survey.

Some 45 percent of Internet users, or an estimated 60 million Americans, said the Internet helped them make big decisions or face a major moment in their life during the previous two years, the survey found. That was up from 40 percent of Internet users who answered the same survey questions in 2002.

Specifically, the survey asked 2,201 adults last month if the Internet played a crucial or important role in making at least one of eight major life decisions.

An estimated 21 million Americans turned to the Internet when seeking more training for a career, while 17 million used it to choose a school for a family member or to help another person with a major illness, the Pew Internet group said.

Some 16 million Americans used the Internet when buying a car or making a major investment or financial decision, it said. An estimated 10 million Americans used the Internet when looking for a new place to live; 8 million when changing jobs; and 7 million when dealing with their own major illness or health condition, the survey said.

“It seems likely that the convenience of broadband draws more users to the Internet to deal with some decision,” the Pew Internet group said. However, better online content and more widely advertised web sites may also contribute to the rising use of the Internet with major life decisions, it said.

The survey results were posted on the Internet at www.pewinternet.org.

The WCN community partner in Pilsen, the Gads Hill Center, will be holding a 3 on 3 charity basketball tournament on Saturday, May 20, 2006 at the Windy City Fieldhouse. Go to the Hoops for the Hill 2006 website for more information.

A participant from North Lawndale’s WCN has used their connection to start an e-shop selling a variety of goods. Go to the ONEight Gift Shop to mak a purchase and support a fellow WCN participants’ business.

Technology students from the West Frankfort High School are trained to take on some of the responsibilities of maintaining West Frankfort’s WCN. Staff of John A. Logan College have trained students to take over installations, trouble-shooting and programming for the network in southern Illinois. These students will in turn train next years class to do the same.

Wireless Community Networks Training Series

The Wireless Community Networks Training Series is a way for North Lawndale residents to learn how their wireless network operates and to gain the skills to expand and maintain the network. Individuals will receive Certificates of Completion for attending all three sessions as well as an invitation to help in their neighborhood’s network maintenance and expansion.

WCN BASIC 1 – NODE BUILDINGN & HARDWARE BASICS

This course covers the physical aspects of putting the Wireless Community Network together, covering topics such as preparing CAT-5 (or Ethernet) cable for use, safely working with computer hardware, learning about “nodes” - the combination of a low-power computer and antenna that is the essential piece of the wireless network. In the WCN Basic 1 course, participants will get a hands-on introduction to the way a node is put together from “off the shelf” parts by working with actual nodes that will be later placed in the community.

April 5th (6:30pm to 8:30pm)

At the Homan Square Community Campus (3517 W. Arthington S.)

April 19th (6pm to 8pm)

At the Carole Robertson Center for Learning (2020 W. Roosevelt Rd.)*

WCN BASIC 2 – HOOKING UP, HOOKING IN

This class will go over the basics of connecting computers to the wireless network, including different ways to connect (both wireless and wired network interface cards) and the basics of network security and what to do - and not do - when setting up a computer network. This course will also cover basic procedure and safety instructions for installing nodes on building rooftops.

April 26th(6pm to 8pm)

At the Homan Square Community Campus (3517 W. Arthington Ave.)

May 2nd (6pm to 8pm)

At the Carole Robertson Center for Learning (2020 W. Roosevelt Rd.)*

WCN ADVANCED – MAINTAINING & UPGRADING NODES

The software that runs on the nodes is intended to be as easy as possible to use - even for people who are only comfortable using web browsers - but it still requires a significant amount of introduction. This course will give an introduction to understanding and exploring the way the software works, and also the simple procedure for updating nodes with new versions of the network software.

May 10th (6pm to 8pm)

At the Homan Square Community Campus (3517 W. Arthington Ave.)

*If you are driving to a Training Session at the Carole Robertson Center for Learning, please go to the front desk to receive a Parking Pass.

For more information on the WCN Network Training Series contact Nicholas Woytek at 773.278.4800 or Rob Simmons at 773.722.5653.

By MICHEL MARRIOTT Published: March 31, 2006 New York Times

African-Americans are steadily gaining access to and ease with the Internet, signaling a remarkable closing of the “digital divide” that many experts had worried would be a crippling disadvantage in achieving success.

Civil rights leaders, educators and national policy makers warned for years that the Internet was bypassing blacks and some Hispanics as whites and Asian-Americans were rapidly increasing their use of it.

But the falling price of laptops, more computers in public schools and libraries and the newest generation of cellphones and hand-held devices that connect to the Internet have all contributed to closing the divide, Internet experts say.

Another powerful influence in attracting blacks and other minorities to the Internet has been the explosive evolution of the Internet itself, once mostly a tool used by researchers, which has become a cultural crossroad of work, play and social interaction.

Studies and mounting anecdotal evidence now suggest that blacks, even some of those at the lower end of the economic scale, are making significant gains. As a result, organizations that serve African-Americans, as well as companies seeking their business, are increasingly turning to the Internet to reach out to them.

“What digital divide?” Magic Johnson, the basketball legend, asked rhetorically in an interview about his new Internet campaign deal with the Ford Motor Company’s Lincoln Mercury division to use the Internet to promote cars to black prospective buyers.

The sharpest growth in Internet access and use is among young people. But blacks and other members of minorities of various ages are also merging onto the digital information highway as never before.

According to a Pew national survey of people 18 and older, completed in February, 74 percent of whites go online, 61 percent of African-Americans do and 80 percent of English-speaking Hispanic-Americans report using the Internet. The survey did not look at non-English-speaking Hispanics, who some experts believe are not gaining access to the Internet in large numbers.

In a similar Pew survey in 1998, just 42 percent of white American adults said they used the Internet while only 23 percent of African-American adults did so. Forty percent of English-speaking Hispanic-Americans said they used the Internet.

Despite the dissolving gap, some groups like the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network, which introduces digital technologies to young people, say the digital divide is still vast in more subtle ways. Instant messaging and downloading music is one thing, said Marlon Orozco, program manager at the network’s Boston clubhouse, but he would like to see black and Hispanic teenagers use the Internet in more challenging ways, like building virtual communities or promoting their businesses.

Vicky Rideout, vice president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which has studied Internet use by race, ethnicity and age, cautioned that a new dimension of the digital divide might be opening because groups that were newer to the Internet tended to use less-advanced hardware and had slower connection speeds.

“The type and meaningful quality of access is, in some ways, a more challenging divide that remains,” Ms. Rideout said. “This has an impact on things like homework.”

In addition, Internet access solely at institutions can put students at a disadvantage. Schools and other institutions seldom operate round the clock, seven days a week, which is especially an issue for students, said Andy Carvin, coordinator for the Digital Divide Network, an international group that seeks to close the gap.

But not everyone agrees that minorities tend toward less-advanced use of the Internet. Pippa Norris, a lecturer on comparative politics at Harvard who has written extensively about the digital divide, said members of minorities had been shown to use the Internet to search for jobs and to connect to a wide variety of educational opportunities.

“The simple assumption that the Internet is a luxury is being disputed by this group,” Ms. Norris said.

The divide was considered so dire a decade ago that scholars, philanthropists and even President Bill Clinton in his 1996 State of the Union address fretted over just what the gap would mean in lost educational and employment opportunities for young people who were not wired.

In an effort to help erase the divide, the federal government has provided low-cost connections for schools, libraries, hospitals and health clinics, allocated money to expand in-home access to computers and the Internet for low-income families and given tax incentives to companies donating computer and technical training and for sponsoring community learning centers.

As a result of such efforts, “most kids, almost all kids, have a place in which they can go online and have gone online,” said Ms. Rideout of the Kaiser foundation.

Jason Jordan of Boston is one of the young people closing the divide. Jason, 17, who is black, is getting a used computer from an older brother. He said he had wanted a computer for years, since “I heard about a lot that I was missing.”

Jason said he had access to the Internet at school, where he is pursuing a general equivalency diploma, but looked forward to having his own computer and Web access at his home in the Dorchester section of Boston. “I can work in my own place and don’t have to worry about the time I’m online,” he said.

Like Jason, almost 9 out of 10 of the 21 million Americans ages 12 to 17 use the Internet, according to a report issued in July by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Of them, 87 percent of white teenagers say they use the Internet, while 77 percent of black teenagers and 89 percent of Hispanic teenagers say they have access to it, the report said.

The gap in access among young Americans is less pronounced than among their parents’ generation, said Susannah Fox, associate director of the Pew project. “Age continues to be a strong predictor for Internet use,” Ms. Fox said.

While, overall Internet use among blacks still significantly trails use among whites, the shrinking divide is most vividly reflected in the online experience of people like Billy and Barbara Johnson. Less than two years ago, the Johnsons, who are black, plugged into the Internet in their upscale suburban home near Atlanta for the first time. Mrs. Johnson, a 52-year-old mother of four and homemaker, said she felt she had little choice because her school-age children needed to use the Internet for research.

And then there is e-mail. “No one really wants to take the time anymore to pick up the phone and keep in touch,” lamented Mrs. Johnson, who said that so much of the communications with her children’s school was done through e-mail correspondence. “I felt like I was pretty much forced into it.”

Even so, Mrs. Johnson said her husband, an assistant coach for the Atlanta Falcons, still chided her when she neglected to check her e-mail at least every day.

Ms. Norris and other experts on Internet use see progress on the horizon. They note that the declining cost of laptop and other computers, and efforts, like those in Philadelphia, to provide low-cost wireless Internet access, are likely to increase online access for groups that have been slow to connect.

Philanthropic efforts have also helped to give more people Internet access. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $250 million since 1997 for American public libraries to create Internet access for the public. Martha Choe, the foundation’s director of global libraries, said some 47,000 computers had been bought for 11,000 libraries. Today, Ms. Choe said, most libraries in the United States have public Internet access.

Education levels remain a major indicator of who is among the 137 million Americans using the Internet and who is not, said Ms. Fox.

There is also a strong correlation, experts say, between household income and Internet access.

With so many more members of minorities online, some Web sites are trying to capitalize on their new access. For example, the New York/New Jersey region of the State of the African American Male, a national initiative to improve conditions for black men, is encouraging men to use digital equipment to “empower themselves” to better their lives. The site, which includes studies, public policy reports and other information about issues related to black men, promotes using digital cameras, mobile phones and iPods, but mainly computers, to organize through the Internet, said Walter Fields, vice president for government relations for the Community Service Society, an antipoverty organization, and a coordinator of the black-male initiative. Users are encouraged to submit articles, write blogs and upload pertinent photographs and video clips.

“What we’re doing is playing against the popular notion of a digital divide,” Mr. Fields said. “I always felt that it was a misnomer.”

From March 31 to April 2, 2006, the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (CUWiN), Free Press, and Mid-Rivers Community Wireless Network will host the Second National Summit for Community Wireless Networks at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO.

The Summit is the largest gathering of community wireless networking developers, implementers and allies focused on building the alliance of technologists, policy experts, and implementers, and encouraging participants to discuss the great variety of challenges and opportunities facing the movement, including:

*How can community wireless networks better serve their target populations?

*What is the future of unlicensed spectrum and what policies and regulations will support/hamper innovations in community wireless technologies?

*How can the hundreds of independently-operating community wireless initiatives join together to create a positive future for the movement?

*What technological and software innovations do we already have, and what projects are currently being worked on?

*What are the pros and cons of different wireless systems currently available?

The 3-day Summit allows participants to engage in extended conversations with presenters and with each other. Attendees will help develop strategic plans to expand community wireless network deployment and ensure that the federal government regulates spectrum to increase unlicensed access.

Wireless Internet service providers would be allowed to operate freely on new chunks of unused TV spectrum, according to two new bills in the U.S. Senate.

A pair of similar measures introduced Friday would give wireless device manufacturers the green light to develop products for unlicensed use on the broadband airwaves’ “white spaces”–that is, empty, unused channels in the broadcast TV bands.

Companies interested in deploying Wi-Fi networks covet the bands of spectrum on which broadcast television currently resides because of its inherent scientific properties. Signals at that frequency travel straighter and farther. Consumer advocates say using the spectrum would enable cheaper and easier set-up–and thus more widespread access for rural and low-income areas.

That’s one of the major reasons high-tech companies also have been clamoring for bumping broadcasters off the analog spectrum entirely. Congress has already mandated that movement–and the nation’s transition to all-digital TV broadcasts–must happen by February 2009.

The New America Foundation, an independent think tank that supports freeing up the white space for wireless deployment, estimates that 40 percent to 80 percent of the TV spectrum lies vacant in rural areas and that major metropolises host a fair share of empty spectrum as well.

That organization joined consumer advocates in applauding the bills’ introduction. “Opening the white spaces for new and innovative technologies is an essential step toward bridging the digital divide, bringing 21st century telecommunications to rural areas and providing affordable access to all Americans,” advocacy groups Consumers Union and Free Press wrote in a letter to the bills’ sponsors.

The Federal Communications Commission has already been considering making rules (click here for PDF) to allow unlicensed use of the white space since 2004. But that proceeding has stalled, in part because of concerns expressed by commissioners over potential interference from new devices operating on the spectrum.

“We must be able and ready to conduct independent harmful-interference tests, and to act decisively when harmful interference has occurred,” Commissioner Michael Copps said in a statement at the time. Other commissioners seemed inclined simply to wait until the digital-television transition is complete.

The politically powerful National Association of Broadcasters has voiced resistance to the idea for similar reasons, arguing that the devices would muddle the reception of over-the-air TV stations. The Consumer Electronics Association said in comments to the FCC last year that its member companies could not reach a consensus as to whether new devices could be introduced to the spectrum without posing interference risks to existing services.

Both new bills would instruct the FCC to move more quickly on concluding those rulemaking procedures. The agency would have to come up with technical rules and guidelines for those operating on the unlicensed spectrum, with an eye toward preventing “harmful interference” from the new devices.

But they differ slightly in their approaches. The American Broadband for Communities Act offered by Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, would involve rewriting telecommunications law to free up only certain portions of the unused spectrum for wireless deployment.

Virginia Republican George Allen’s two-page Wireless Innovation Act of 2006, co-sponsored by Democrats John Kerry and Barbara Boxer, and by Republican John Sununu, appears to call for unlicensed wireless activities on any unused piece of the analog TV band.

“At a time when the U.S. is lagging behind much of the world in broadband penetration–and more than 60 percent of the country does not subscribe to broadband service primarily because it is either unavailable or unaffordable–our legislation would put this country one step closer to closing the economic digital divide and achieving ubiquitous broadband Internet access throughout America,” Allen said in a statement.

By Anne Broache Staff Writer, CNET News.com

The city of Philadelphia detailed its plan to blanket the city with Wi-Fi after signing its final contract with EarthLink, which will build and operate the network on behalf of the city.

The city said Wednesday that pricing of the broadband service will be kept below $20 per month. Economically disadvantaged users will be charged $9.95 a month, while other Internet service providers will be charged a wholesale rate that allows them to sell access for $20 a month or less to retail customers, the city said.

Comcast, which offers cable modem service in Philadelphia, offers a three-month special on its broadband service for $19.99. After that, the price shoots up to $42.95 per month for customers who also subscribe to its cable TV service and $57.95 for those who don’t subscribe to its cable TV service. But Verizon Communications, which sells DSL (digital subscriber line) service in Philadelphia, offers a comparable broadband service for $14.95.

Still, city officials say that the new Wi-Fi network will offer consumers more choices without risking taxpayer money. As part of the deal with the city, EarthLink will build, manage and maintain the wireless network.

The next step in the process requires the city council of Philadelphia to approve two ordinances. One ordinance will allow EarthLink, which won the contract back in October, to deploy wireless transmitters and receivers on city streetlights. The other ordinance is a management agreement between the city and Wireless Philadelphia, the nonprofit organization established to oversee the wireless project.

“We will work closely with City Council as they consider these ordinances necessary to make this exciting program a reality,” John F. Street, mayor of Philadelphia, said in a statement. “Building a wireless network is another major step forward for our world-class city. It’s tremendous news for Philadelphia.”

Pending approval from the city council, EarthLink will begin installing the wireless equipment right away. Initially, it will set up a small 13-square-mile pilot network. But eventually, it will deploy wireless equipment on approximately 4,000 streetlamp poles, covering 135 square miles of the city with Wi-Fi. EarthLink will pay the city a fee for access to the streetlights.

Also as part of the deal with the city, EarthLink will provide free hot spots in 22 locations around Philadelphia, and provide the city with 3,000 free or discounted Wi-Fi accounts and 700 discounted T-1 accounts to be used at the city’s discretion.

Wireless Philadelphia will receive about 5 percent of the access revenue that EarthLink generates from the service. The group will use this money along with other monies raised to invest in educational and social programs to help Philadelphia citizens.

The city also plans to use about $2 million received from EarthLink for the rights of way to the streetlamps to help implement initiatives designed to bridge the digital divide, including the purchase of about 10,000 discounted computers for low-income residents and training programs.

By Marguerite Reardon Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Net neutrality in broadband networks has become a major public-policy debate. Every industry whose products or services can be digitized will be affected by the outcome, as tens of billions of dollars are at stake.

Net neutrality, also called network neutrality, has three components. First, users should have access to any content they choose while being able to attach any device to the network–so long as it will not harm the network. Secondly, there’s the issue of the management of the broadband network. This involves practices such as shaping traffic, reserving capacity or spectrum, or blocking viruses and harmful programs. The third component involves initiatives designed to convince applications and content providers to make new types of payments for premium services, such as faster delivery or caching content closer to the edge of the network.

The initial federal policies on these components are clear. Consumers have already won on the first component–the FCC or Congress will step in if incumbent networks are blocking or discriminating in ways that consumers can observe. But network owners will initially prevail on the rest. Until there is demonstrated competitive harm, the government is unlikely to limit network owners’ flexibility to manage their networks or strike private deals for faster or different services.

The policy debate is effectively over on the federal level. But the battle is not over. Proponents of open networks–where all three of the Net neutrality components are implemented in ways favorable to the consumer or application provider–should adopt a market-based strategy of strategic bypass.

Two premises underpin this strategy. First, consumers prefer open networks. Many years of experience in U.S. markets show that if one network is open, competing networks will also be open. Both cable and wireless broadband networks have to date been open despite having no regulatory requirement. Why? Because it was the only way they could compete with the telco networks. The second premise is that it will be impossible for a network owner to have different “openness” or Net neutrality policies for different geographic regions in its network. Such variable policies might be technically possible, but they would be politically indefensible.

This leads to an interesting conclusion: If one broadband network in a geographic market remains open, its competitors will also have to remain open as a business imperative–and each of them will have to remain open across their entire networks.

This means you don’t need to build a third pipe throughout the U.S. in order to force open broadband networks. Instead, you can engage in strategic bypass, constructing a “third pipe” in a handful of economically attractive, geographically dispersed markets. The third pipe would have to be a true, open broadband network (probably above 2Mbps symmetrical), and would have to be available to both residential and business customers throughout the market. The technology used is irrelevant–it could be BPL, fiber, Wi-Fi, WiMax or any other fixed or mobile wireless technology.

Bypass-market incumbents would have to either maintain their openness policies or close their networks and cede most of each market to the bypass technology. The second option is probably not viable. By ceding market share, incumbents would also be confirming that their ability to impose closed network policies in non-bypass markets resulted from their market power in the last mile, and not from efficiency, consumer demand or other acceptable market forces.

Markets presenting excellent characteristics for bypass would be Philadelphia, San Francisco, Denver, Milwaukee (or Chicago), Miami (or Atlanta), and New York (or Washington DC/Montgomery County, Md.). A third pipe in six (and possibly as few as four) of those markets would force seven of the eight largest incumbent RBOCs and cable MSOs to choose one of these two unpalatable options. In addition, the two largest wireless broadband networks (Verizon Wireless and Sprint) are in all of those markets and would probably also have to retain their existing openness policies.

Here’s where it gets very interesting. Seven of the cities have issued RFPs or announced plans for citywide municipal Wi-Fi networks. The cost of putting in a Wi-Fi network will be between $10 and $20 MM per city. Annual operating costs would be only a couple of million dollars a year. So for somewhere between $75-120 MM over the next two years, content and application providers and other open network supporters could effectively guarantee open networks over the long term.

Google, EarthLink, Microsoft and others may have already figured out this strategy. If they haven’t, they will soon. The battle over municipal Wi-Fi is now a battle over open networks, not municipal finances or the fairness of municipal competition.

by Mark Del Bianco

Biography Mark Del Bianco practices and publishes on issues at the intersection of communications law, antitrust and new technologies. His clients include a variety of VoIP and competitive telecommunications providers and e-commerce firms. He can be contacted at mdelbianco@aya.yale.edu.

U.S. Internet growth is stalling. And it’s not just the old or poor who are living offline

Business Week

March 20, 2006

These days, getting answers to most questions seems like a no-brainer. For everything from who won an Olympic speed skating race to when to plant tomatoes, most people turn to Google or one of its rivals. Not John W. Rogers Jr. The CEO of Ariel Capital Management LLC doesn’t use the Internet at work or at home. The 47-year-old Princeton University grad thinks the Net is largely a waste of time. Assistants print out e-mails for him and researchers give him paper copies of Wall Street analysts reports from the Web. He prefers to spend his time reading, talking directly with his staff, working out at the gym, or spending time with his teenage daughter. “If you’re spending all your time on e-mail, you’re not listening and reading,” says Rogers, who rarely took lecture notes while he was a student so he could listen more intently. “I listen and read; e-mail is a huge distraction.”

It’s a sentiment that many Americans find hard to imagine. Plowing through e-mail has become part of the daily routine, like brushing your teeth or walking the dog. But Rogers isn’t as much of an oddity as it might seem. Despite its popularity among teens and techies, and its use in most offices, the Internet is far from ubiquitous. In fact, 39 million American households still do not have Internet access. That means only 64% of households are connected, according to a recent survey of 1,000 people by Dallas researcher Parks Associates. An even bigger surprise is that the growth of the Internet in the U.S. has stalled. Despite cheaper prices and faster speeds, analysts expect uptake to creep just one percentage point this year, to 65%, and to only 67% by 2009.

Many people are non-Netizens for obvious reasons. They can’t afford service or live in remote areas without hope of affordable connections. And some are past the age when they want to adopt new technology. Says Jeanette Lamar, 92: “I’m too old to start that stuff.” But the spectrum of naysayers also includes millions of well-off, educated, and younger professionals. Of the survey respondents who say they don’t use the Web, 24% make more than $50,000. Some 39% of the Netphobes attended or graduated college or have at least some associate degree training. And 29% are 44 years old or younger. “It’s not just everyone’s grandmother who is avoiding the Internet,” says John C. Barrett, director of research at Parks Associates.

“IT’S A HASSLE” Why are people saying no? Some worry, after hearing about online scams and digital viruses, that the Net isn’t safe. Others swear that, for all the brouhaha about the Net’s ability to enhance communication, e-mail and instant-message chats break down social interaction. But the broader issue is that — despite innovations that make it possible for people to call up their bank accounts with a few clicks of the mouse, watch the latest episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on a PC, and play online games against competitors in Korea, France, and South Africa — the Internet remains too complicated and costly for a huge swath of American society. Doreen Pappas, a 39-year-old who works in the finance industry in New York City, isn’t willing to go through the headache of picking out a computer, having it delivered, and setting up an online connection. “It’s a hassle and it’s expensive,” Pappas says. “I would rather spend the money on fun things.”

Other consumer electronics gear is much more widely adopted: Nearly 100% of U.S. households have a TV, 83% have a DVD player, and 78% have a cell phone. Despite their particular drawbacks, all these technologies are easier to use than an Internet-connected computer. Yet, while the tech industry has vowed to make its products simpler, companies keep stuffing online services, PCs, and other devices with complicated new features. That’s why predictions of a few years ago that 75% of American households would be online by now have fallen short. “Innovation is rarely seen as taking things away or making them simpler,” says Steve Jones, a senior research fellow for the Pew Internet & American Life Project in Washington. “We’ve had so much time to come up with a computer and Internet that are easier to use and work better, but we haven’t done it.”

It’s little wonder that millions of people don’t like or trust the Internet. Take Sylvia Goodwin, a 57-year-old assistant attorney general in Tucson. She has a PC at home but no Net service. That puts her among the 31% of households that say they will not subscribe to an Internet service because access at work is sufficient. To Goodwin, the Web is a 21st century manifestation of the world depicted in George Orwell’s 1984. As a prosecutor, Goodwin knows how easy it is for Big Brother to gain access to personal information. To her, giving out addresses, telephone numbers, and credit-card information online seems like a surefire way to lose control of your privacy. “If you do everything on the Internet, someone can go in and pick it up,” she says.

For others, the Internet is an example of what author Neil Postman called “the surrender of culture to technology.” From Silicon Valley engineers to teenage geeks, tech enthusiasts see only what the Net can do, not what it might undo. But James J. Mitchell, a retired banking executive from suburban Chicago, believes the Web dismantles face-to-face communication. He’s part of the 18% of households that, according to the Parks survey, have a computer but aren’t interested in “anything” on the Internet. Though Mitchell oversaw his company’s tech strategy a few years ago, he never used e-mail at work. Instead he watched people become enslaved to it. Mitchell says most messages were trivial and undermined the more intimate forms of communication he favors — in person or on the phone. “If you want to talk to me, you should do it personally,” he says. “I don’t need to sit and read every idle thought you rattle off.”

For Chicago flower shop owner Grace Puente, it’s less a frivolity than a disruption of the simple life. After a day spent arranging blooms and logging deliveries, the 50-year-old is content to go home, sit back, and watch King of Queens or Boston Legal on TV. She doesn’t think the benefits outweigh the technical headaches or possible security problems. Instead, she feels people create difficulties for themselves by shopping online or paying bills over the Internet.

Puente doesn’t even have a computer at home. That would mean spending close to $1,000, plus an additional $15 to $20 a month for Internet service, not to mention the inevitable upgrades. “You always have to buy some new software to make it juicier,” she says. “What kind of juice would I be getting out of it? Nothing

According to a report published by ABI Research, municipal Wi-Fi networks covered only about 1,500 square miles worldwide (3885 square kilometers). Yet by 2010, that figure is expected to increase to 126,000 square miles (over 325,000 square km), an area slightly larger than Poland, or the U.S. state of New Mexico. The bulk of these deployments will take place in North America and the Asia-Pacific region.

To serve those networks, more than one million wireless mesh routers will be shipped in 2010.

The manufacturing revenues from those shipments will exceed US$ 1.2 billion.

According to the report, four significant trends are energizing this emerging market.

Many local governments clearly wish to deploy municipal broadband networks, for public safety as well as increased government efficiency.

Alternative ISPs see mesh networking as enabling their own broadband service facilities to compete with incumbent service providers.

Wireless mesh networking technology is seen as an efficient and cost-effective means of providing broadband access to underserved areas. This is particularly noticeable as the municipal Wi-Fi trend moves from great metropolises into smaller cities and towns.

Potentially, wireless mesh networking technology can serve as a competitive tool for cable operators.

While municipalities initially faced some regulatory restriction in terms of local government funding or their roles as broadband service network operators, that is less the case today, because the model is increasingly of a third-party operator owning and deploying the network. That’s not to say that mesh networking is perfect for all municipal broadband network applications. Sam Lucero, the firm’s Senior Analyst, Wireless Connectivity Research, observes, “The majority of municipal Wi-Fi deployments in the recent past have been based on mesh technology. But that could change, depending on how markets receive WiMAX and similar cellular point-to-point technologies when they become available. That is something we’re keeping a close eye on.”

“Incumbent service providers are not likely to adopt wireless mesh networking technology for their primary networks,” he cautions, “because it does not provide adequate bandwidth for bundled video, voice, and broadband data. Also, they have already invested significant funds and effort in deploying their current networks.”

The ABI Research study, “Wireless Mesh Networking” examines the trends for both metro-scale and campus-scale wireless mesh networking technology on a worldwide basis, and profiles key equipment vendors including BelAir Networks, Cisco Systems, Firetide, MeshDynamics, Motorola, Nortel Networks and more.

Founded in 1990 and headquartered in New York, ABI Research maintains global operations supporting annual research programs, intelligence services and market reports in automotive, wireless, semiconductors, broadband, and energy. For information visit www.abiresearch.com

The hot debate over “Net neutrality” has spilled beyond Internet chat rooms and into Congress. The concept that those who own the “pipes” can’t dictate what goes through them has made the Internet an engine for individual and economic growth. An Internet with gatekeepers threatens the Net’s creative soul.

A group of 70 organizations has sent a letter to Congress urging that it pass “meaningful and enforceable” Internet neutrality legislation. Among them are citizen groups, such as the Consumer Federation of America and the AARP, as well as the stars of the 21st-century Internet-based economy: Google, Microsoft, eBay, TiVo, and Yahoo.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D) of Oregon has introduced legislation that would ban Internet service providers from setting up special “fast lane” higher-priced services or from blocking, degrading, altering, modifying, or changing the Internet traffic they handle.

Opposing them are big providers such as AT&T and Verizon. They’d like to charge extra to those who don’t want to have their Internet traffic caught in the slow lane, as well as use that fast lane for products they create and own.

What’s the harm in that? Google surely has the cash to pay extra for premium service. But could Google, a tiny startup only a few years ago, have sprung up in an environment where the established search engines of the day could pay more to buy premium service? YouTube is a fledgling online company that already transmits some 30 million videos per day and is attracting attention. Would it get fair treatment if big TV and movie corporations can pay to have their video get special service?

Internet-based phone companies like Vonage and Skype have revolutionized the phone industry by offering calls over the Web at low cost. But AT&T and Verizon eventually saw what they were doing and jumped in to offer those services, too. What’s to keep them from giving these little guys poor connections and expediting their own products on the fast lane?

“Net neutrality” simply means that data - a phone call, an e-mail, a video - can travel freely over the Internet without the interference of those who own parts of the pipeline. Those transmitting it shouldn’t discriminate as long as the content is legal and doesn’t damage the system.

The phone companies argue that competition between carriers will prevent abuses. If customers feel unfairly treated by one provider, they can switch to another.

But no such competition exists. A handful of cable TV and phone companies control the lion’s share of US broadband Internet access. Many consumers have no choice among broadband providers. The acquisition of Bell South by AT&T, now under way, shows that competition is shrinking, not expanding.

If Congress fails to act, the only hope may be that neutrality advocates can open up a “third pipe” to homes, even if only in some key markets. That might create just enough competition to keep the cable-phone duopoly honest. That third pipe might be a municipal wireless (WiFi) network, another wireless system, or some future technology.

Pipeline owners shouldn’t choose winners and losers in the online marketplace. Tollbooths and gates are the last thing the Net needs.

Christian Science Monitor March 24, 2006