Philly CIO: Public Wi-Fi Needed To Close Digital Divide

Municipalities have the right -- even the obligation -- to establish city-wide wireless networks and the large telecoms that are fighting the trend are hypocritical. That's the word from somebody who is in a strong position to have an opinion on the matter: Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief information officer (CIO).

In a far-ranging interview, Neff said that the highly-publicized plan to blanket a 135 square-mile area of Philadelphia with a wireless network will help many people in the city. It also will encourage small business development and improve public education and health, she said.

"One goal of the project is to overcome the digital divide, to train small businesses and disadvantaged people," Neff said.

She said that's the sort of thing that city governments should do for their citizens, but it's not what telecommunications companies like Verizon Communications typically care about the most. Verizon, claiming that municipal networks are anti-competitive, lobbied successfully in Pennsylvania for a law, which Neff called "creepy," that gives telecommunications company the right to veto municipal network plans. It and other incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) are pushing similar legislation in other states.

However, Neff said that the business plan for the project, which will be unveiled February 8 when the mayor's office releases its Request For Proposals (RFPs), will create a public-private partnership."I'm not at liberty to divulge the final business model, but it is something that hasn't been done in other places," Neff said. "And we're doing what the voters elected the city (officials) to do: We're investing in the future. To be a twenty-first century city competing in a knowledge economy, you have to invest in technology."

Wi-Fi, With A Dash Of WiMAX

While some cities have left the door open to 3G for their municipal networks, Neff said that Philadelphia's network initially will be based on 802.11b, with WiMAX being used for backhaul from access points to an Internet backbone. She estimated that WiMAX will handle about 60 percent of the backhaul, with fiber and T1 handling most of the rest.

However, the RFP will require that the network, which will be maintained by a private company, be easily upgradeable, at first to Wi-Fi technologies such as 802.11g and, eventually, 802.11n, but also to WiMAX. She said she can envision a day after WiMAX becomes mobile in which that form of wireless broadband will be the primary technology.

"We're looking for 1 Mbps service, upstream and down, citywide," Neff said. "But we also are requiring roaming, which WiMAX can't do today. That's why we're going to a hybrid 802.11/WiMAX system. Eventually, I think we'll upgrade to WiMAX when it better meets our requirements, although there still may be neighborhoods where we won't need it."One possible technology scenario is to use mesh networks. Neff said she is given to understand, for instance, that companies like Tropos Networks, a mesh vendor that has worked on other municipal networks, will submit proposals.

In the end, though, the goal is to make sure that no citizens, no matter how underprivileged, and no businesses, no matter how small, are left behind on the technology curve. And she stressed that the network will help provide better education and health care.

Meeting Public Needs

To learn specifically what the city needed, Neff said that the city met with what she called "stakeholders" about the proposed network.

"We've talked with various stakeholders across the city who want to make this happen," Neff said. "The schools have invested heavily to wire and unwire their campuses, but they're missing that last mile into the home so parents can communicate with teachers and participate in their kids' education. We found that only 58 percent of our households with children have access to the Internet. That's why this project is two-fold: We need the infrastructure and programs to get computers into the homes and we need to connect people to the schools."She stressed other parts of the public infrastructure also were vitally interested in the network.

"The universities are interested in making sure that all students have access to information and courseware," Neff said. "Many campuses are wireless, but you can only have wireless when on campus. So having it city-wide is a low-cost alternative to make sure students can get what they need.

"Another stakeholder group is our health community," Neff continued. "They're excited about having telemedicine become a reality. They've been talking about it for years and years. If you're monitoring for diabetes or heart, it hasn't been practical before. Now it will be."

She said serving the needs of specific groups of citizens isn't a central part of the agendas of large telecom companies and said that their resistance to projects such as Philadelphia's reflected their own agendas.

'It's Creepy'Neff accused the telecoms of being hypocritical in their opposition to municipal wireless projects.

"Their big argument is that government can get tax-free bonds to finance this," she said. "We're not financing this with city dollars. I laugh at that argument because, if you look at (Pennsylvania telecom laws), there's billions in subsidies (to the ILECs) to help them build out their networks. They never fight against subsidies. In fact, they lobby hard for subsidies, so it's like they're talking out both sides of their mouth."

She said that the law passed in Pennsylvania will make it harder for municipalities to do what the people want them to do.

"Government is elected to meet the needs of communities, so why should government have to go to a local exchange carrier and ask permission (to install a wireless network)? It's creepy to me, but they're deep-pocketed lobbyists."

The recently-passed Pennsylvania law gives the telecom operators two months after a city proposes a network to say if they are planning to do something similar and to veto the municipal project, according to Neff. Then, they have 14 months to build the new network plus they can get a 12 month extension. Plus, there are no requirements in the law that the telecoms do things such as serve the specific needs of schools or public health.Nor do the telecoms have to match the technical specifications of the cities. So, for instance, they would not have to insure mobility or a specific speed for the network, according to Neff. As part of the final passage of the law, Verizon Communications said it would grant Philadelphia a waiver saying it would not prevent the project. But that didn't take away the bad taste, Neff said.

"They say they like competition, but only as long as they control the wire," Neff said. "If they have to compete in an open marketplace, they don't like competition."

A New Model

At any rate, Verizon will still be free to compete after the city's network is built, Neff emphasized.

"When you see our business model, you'll see that we haven't limited competition," she said. "We're not looking to give all this to one carrier -- we've argued that a monopoly isn't best. We've always said we want a public-private partnership. We'll partner with the private sector to build and maintain the network."More than that, though, she said that there still will be a role for private providers.

"We have 430 wireless ISPs and ISPs today," she said. "Some of them are very small, just serving specific networks. We want to make sure they're still there and can fill needs of those who can't take advantage of our infrastructure."

She also said that new technology, such as streaming media, might be best handled by other access technologies.

"If people want video e-mail and don't need mobility, (cable) will be attractive," she said. "Or, maybe they'll do both so they can roam around the city. But a very large portion of our population can't afford to have digital broadband over cable or DSL and they need a low-cost alternative."