The Ups And Downs Of Municipal Broadband
Grok Headline matches for The Ups And Downs Of Municipal Broadband
Municipal Broadband at SXSW
Municipal Broadband at SXSW
02/07/2005 01:07 AM Events move so fast, my head spins: a few days after covering the
flurry of activity around the New Millennium Research Council's report
discouraging municipal broadband, I was asked to moderate a panel on
the discussion on March 14 during the South by Southwest (SXSW) music,
arts, and interactive festival and conference in Austin, Texas. Esme
Vos is also on the panel, from MuniWireless.com, and we should have a
rip, and might I add, roaring time. The interactive part of the event
runs March 11 to 15; the overall event is from March 11 to 20....
Does Municipal Broadband Save Jobs?
Does Municipal Broadband Save Jobs?
04/30/2004 01:33 PMJust as certain states (at the urging of big broadband providers) are
trying to
ban
municipal broadband offerings, Broadband Reports is looking at
whether or not municipal broadband
helps create
jobs and boost the local economy. It seems like it's a mixed bag
- but in a fairly expected way. Obviously, it has the ability to do
two things: (1) give jobs to local residents working for the municipal
broadband service provider and (2) help create new jobs for those who
need broadband. However, it's unlikely (on its own) to suddenly turn
any town or city into the next Silicon Valley. Still, with some towns
unable to get broadband any other way, it can clearly help towns
keep jobs that
would otherwise go away. Considering the fact that, these days,
many jobs
require broadband access, it seems somewhat
ridiculous for states to mandate that their towns and cities can't
come up with their own solutions.
Senators back municipal broadband
Senators back municipal broadband
06/24/2005 03:32 PMIn the face of opposition from the telecom industry, some US senators
are supporting municipal broadband.
NRMC Report on Municipal Broadband Is
Out
NRMC Report on Municipal Broadband Is
Out
02/05/2005 09:27 PM I've read the report, and it's worth downloading and reviewing: The
report from the NMRC is called "Not In The Public Interest - The Myth
of Municipal Wi-Fi Networks -- Why Municial Schemes to Provide Wi-Fi
Broadband Services With Public Funds Are Ill-Advised." I've studied it
now and have some comments. Before reading my comments, you should
review that report and one that's a predecessor and cited in this
report and in some of the advance publicity from The Heartland
Institute, which co-produced the report--The Beacon Hill Institute at
Suffolk University's Municipal Broadband in Concord: An In-Depth
Analysis. (See also Karl Bode's more irate analysis of the report.)
I'm going to back in time to March 2004, when the Beacon Hill
Institute report was published because many elements of it are
embedded in the NMRC report. The Concord report from Beacon Hill
analyzes whether a proposed network in Concord, Mass., has any hopes
of producing a good return with low risk. The report looks at four
cities, including Tacoma, Wash., and Ashland, Ore., and also examines
RCN, a cable operator that tried to offer competitive broadband
services in areas with incumbent operators. Some financial details in
the report on Tacoma and Ashland date to 2001 partly because financial
information isn't readily broken out for these two projects. Based on
aspects of the Beacon Hill report, it was clearly primarily written in
late 2003 when full-year figures for 2002 were all that would have
been available. It's tricky to tease out where they got numbers for
Ashland and Tacoma even after studying and following the footnotes and
reading reports at the various project sites. For instance, a citation
on Ashland borrowing as much as $20 million from other city agencies
to make up revenue shortfalls in their fiber network is attribute to a
site called Dynacorp-sucks.com that was "last accessed January 28,
2003" in the footnote reference. There is no record of this site at
Archive.org, either, which doesn't mean it didn't exist, but means I
cannot research what used to be there. On the Ashland Fiber Network
site and City of Ashland's site, I cannot find recent numbers on cost
and capital expenses, except that in the 2003-2004 budget, income from
AFN outstrips expense by about 15 percent ($2.67 million in versus
$2.33 million out). There appears to be no primary research in the
Beacon Hill report, such as...
Podcast: Municipal Broadband Panel
Discussion
Podcast: Municipal Broadband Panel
Discussion
03/17/2005 03:44 AM Listen to an hour of discussion at South by Southwest Interactive
(SXSWi) on municipal broadband: Deep in the heart of Texas, mere
blocks from the State House where a bill is under consideration to ban
all forms of municipal networking, I led a panel discussion at SXSWi
with three people well poised to discuss the issues: Esme Vos of
muniwireless.com, Rich MacKinnon of Austin Wireless, and David
Isenberg of the SMART Letter. The conversation was fairly focused, and
you'll hear the same themes over and over again: disruptive technology
is threatening incumbents who are trying to prevent all forms of
experimentation and innovation by municipalities because any success
on these fronts could produce competitive private businesses. All
three panelists agreed the innovation and competition were good, and
all four of us at various times agreed that utilities should probably
not have anything to do with broadband except in facilitating
competition by removing barriers to access to poles and conduits, or
by contracting private firms to build neutral networks onto which any
provider can roam. The audio quality is mixed: you can hear the
panelists quite well, but questioners and commenters from the
audience--including well-known quantities like Jock Gill, Dewayne
Hendricks, Cliff Skolnick, and Jon Lebovsky--are a little faint. You
can download the audio in MP3 format either directly as MP3 [31 MB] or
as a ZIP archive [24 MB]. An article in yesterday's Austin Business
Journal--in which publication my picture will appear in about two
weeks in an unrelated story--points out that even airport-based Wi-Fi
and broadband could be threatened because the contract that the
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport has with Wayport would be
banned under the first form of the house bill....
Model Anti-Municipal Broadband Bill
Model Anti-Municipal Broadband Bill
12/22/2004 01:27 AM Esme Vos has uncovered (and has available for download) the model
bill for state legislatures to ban municipal broadband: The
inestimable Vos has emerged as a firebrand for fighting back the
rhetoric of incumbent teleopolies that have put out the meme that
there are unfair tax breaks and unfair advantages that a municipal
operation has over private enterprise. This ignores the subsidies
provided--estimated at over $700 per person in Pennsylvania over the
last 10 years of a failed Verizon development plan,
non-refundable--and "taxes" that telcos and cable companies are often
able to collect for their own coffers. Vos now posts the bill that
someone--she'd like to know the individual--wrote to distribute to
various legislatures under the guise of competition. Competition means
not taking money from taxpayers, charging them by overpriced tariffs
defended to the death, collecting and keeping funds intended for rural
or impoverished citizens to have universal access, and fighting for
the right to squeeze the pipes to prevent interesting competitive
services from rising. Competition does mean building neutral
infrastructure paid for by access fees that allow all comers to
compete on a level playing field to let the market determine the best
use of resources. It's strange how businesses that hate regulation in
theory love how it supports their business models. Also strange how
many folks who claim to want real markets only really want big
businesses to be able to dictate to their markets what things cost. I
looked at the innards of the Word doc that Esme posted, but the only
secret information it contains is about her computer, not any previous
computers. On Monday morning, she posted the list of board members of
the American Legislative Exchange Council, the group behind the model
legislation. Update: Sascha Meinrath calls astroturf on three
organizations, including ALEC, that are behind anti-municipal
telco/cable/telecom service bills, pointing out that their boards'
members are mostly made up of folks that more likely have their own
companies' interests at heart despite the mission statements....
Of Municipal Broadband, Astroturfing And
Figuring Out What The Real Story Is
Of Municipal Broadband, Astroturfing And
Figuring Out What The Real Story Is
02/05/2005 09:49 PMIt's been pretty fascinating to watch this story develop over the past
few days. Of course, it's nothing new to find out that supposedly
"objective" research was actually carried out to favor a specific
interest, but congratulations should go out to Glenn Fleishman for
focusing the attention on the real story here. The background is that
an organization called the New Millennium Research Council came out
with a report which seemed to suggest that all municipal broadband was
pure evil (well, not exactly, but that's how the pre-release info made
it sound). Glenn took it upon himself to
pull back some of
the curtain on the folks who were behind the report. eWeek then
took
that a step further, and suddenly the "story" was no longer about
the evils of municipal broadband -- but the sketchy connections
between powerful telco interests who have been fighting as hard as
they can against any kind of competition and the group that wrote the
study. Glenn later gave a
thorough review
of the actual report, where he notes it's not nearly as bad as it had
appeared from the initial leaks, and that it does raise some valid
points. However, the real story is the
underhanded way in
which this report was written, with money being funnelled from a
group supported by the big telcos to what appears to be nothing more
than a front organization to write up reports that favor its funders.
Now, others are
picking up on the astroturf attempt, rather than the
study itself.
US senators offer bill to protect
municipal broadband
US senators offer bill to protect
municipal broadband
06/24/2005 06:54 PMWASHINGTON - Two U.S. senators have jumped into a growing debate
about whether cities should be allowed to create tax-funded broadband
services, with the two introducing a bill that would prevent states
from outlawing municipal broadband projects.
Fourteen U.S. states have passed laws limiting municipal broadband
services, with large Internet providers lobbying against city-offered
services.
The Community Broadband Act of 2005, introduced Thursday by
Senators John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Frank Lautenberg, a
New Jersey Democrat, would prevent states from outlawing municipal
broadband service while requiring cities to regulate their own
broadband services the same as they regulate competitors. For example,
a municipal broadband service would have to pay the same franchise
fees as other providers.
Several cities, including Philadelphia, have explored offering
municipal broadband, typically using Wi-Fi technology, in recent
months. Late last year, Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell signed
legislation preventing further municipal broadband projects, but along
with the bill came an agreement between the city of Philadelphia and
Verizon Communicatons Inc. over a city-run Wi-Fi network.
The Community Broadband Act is needed to meet President George
Bush's goal of universally available broadband in the U.S. by 2007,
McCain said in a speech Thursday. McCain noted that the U.S. ranks
16th among nations in broadband penetration.
"This is unacceptable for a country that should lead the world in
technical innovation, economic development and international
competitiveness," McCain said. "As a country, we cannot afford to cut
off any successful strategy if we want to remain internationally
competitive."
Private investment in the Internet should be protected and
continued, he added. "However, when private industry does not answer
the call because of market failures or other obstacles, it is
appropriate and even commendable, for the people acting through their
local governments to improve their lives by investing in their own
future," McCain said. "In many rural towns, the local government?s
high speed Internet offering may be its citizens only option to access
the World Wide Web."
Verizon and SBC Communications Inc., which both offer DSL (Digital
Subscriber Line) services, have opposed municipal broadband, as has
Time Warner Cable, saying tax-funded services should not be allowed to
compete against existing commercial services. A spokesman for Verizon
said Friday the company had not reviewed the McCain/Lautenberg bill
and had no comment on it. An SBC spokesman didn't immediately respond
to a request for comments.
The two telecom giants, however, helped fund a study released in
February that said municipal Wi-Fi networks could have "grave
flaws."
The New Millennium Research Council study suggested municipal
broadband services could dedicate tax dollars to rapidly outdated
technology. The study also noted that municipal broadband networks
could be expensive to maintain. "Municipal Wi-Fi networks present a
number of serious problems that are being overlooked as cities rush
into committing millions in taxpayer dollars to pay for network
development and expansion," the study said.
The McCain/Lautenberg legislation stands in contrast to a bill
introduced in May by Representative Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican
and former SBC employee. The Sessions bill, the Preserving Innovation
in Telecom Act of 2005, would outlaw municipal broadband services in
areas where competing commercial services exist. The bill has been
referred to a House subcommittee.
Sessions introduced the bill to ?discourage local governments from
wasting taxpayer funds on building duplicative infrastructure while at
the same time encouraging private-sector companies to offer
continually innovating service in underserved areas by removing the
specter of government competition" he said in a statement when the
bill was introduced.
On Thursday, 40 groups representing local governments, the IT
industry and consumers sent a letter to members of Congress asking
lawmakers to support pro-municipal broadband legislation. Among the
groups signing the letter were the League of California Cities, Public
Knowledge, the Rural Broadband Coalition, Consumers Union and the
Fiber to the Home Council.
SEE ALSO:
Da
ta privacy gets a hearing
BT's 'new wave' services contribute more to
revenue
ADVERTISEMENT
Trend
Micro
NEW ANTI-SPYWARE SOLUTIONS FROM TREND MICRO
Heavy-Hitters Join Pro-Municipal
Broadband Legislative Battle
Heavy-Hitters Join Pro-Municipal
Broadband Legislative Battle
06/24/2005 10:01 PM Dell, Intel, Texas Instruments, and others want more broadband to
sell more gear to consumers: They've increasingly gotten involved in
the ongoing debate over whether incumbent monopolies and duopolies
deserve right of first refusal for broadband deployment in their
service areas over municipalities because of incumbents' investments,
municipalities' tax-free and bond-raising abilities, and the role of
government in competing with private enterprise. The Wall Street
Journal walks through the issue, starting with a small town in Texas
that's building broadband because SBC can't or won't. The Texas
legislature was considering a telecom "reform" bill--a bill which
removed many public service and oversight controls on telcos--that
would also have banned municipalities from participating in broadband.
The original bill was so broad it would have banned virtually all
private-public partnerships that the FCC and the Bush Administration
have stressed for extending broadband into the furthest reaches of the
country. The backlash is now coming since Texas's bill hit defeat for
a variety of reasons, partly including Dell's founder picking up the
phone and calling legislators. You see, computer makers would enjoy
selling more equipment and one way to do that is broadband. (Homes
with broadband connections tend to buy newer equipment and more
computers, among other reasons.) Pete Sessions (R-Texas) has
introduced a bill at the national level to pre-empt local legislation
(there's that anti-federalism again) governing municipal operation of
broadband. Sessions is the representative from SBC: a former employee
with huge stock and stock options held directly (not in trust) with a
spouse who currently works there. His chief of staff told the Wall
Street Journal that "the congressman's ties to SBC do not present a
conflict of interest." Except in that he has millions of dollars at
stake over SBC's continued performance in the market....
New group urges public/private sector
partnership to facilitate municipal
broadband
New group urges public/private sector
partnership to facilitate municipal
broadband
04/16/2005 05:07 AMA group called the High Tech Broadband Coalition is encouraging public
and private sector partnership to facilitate municipal broadband.
Ricochet Offers Broadband Portable
Internet to Municipal & Public Safety
Workers
Ricochet Offers Broadband Portable
Internet to Municipal & Public Safety
Workers
05/12/2004 05:28 AMdBusinessNews.com May 12 2004 9:41AM GMT
Ups and Downs
Ups and Downs
02/16/2004 04:12 PM Being in business for yourself is a quirky thing. Events happening in
your field which are mostly positive lead to excitement for future
possibilities. More negative occurances lead to reflection, and
consideration of what can be done to avoid...
ups and downs and all-arounds
ups and downs and all-arounds
05/06/2004 01:03 PM
Will they call Rosie
courageous? Will she be as
compelling and nuanced as
Benny Stulwicz? Can this sort of portrayal
come anywhere close to
the real thing?
The Ups And Downs Of File Sharing
The Ups And Downs Of File Sharing
04/26/2004 11:53 AMThe latest Pew study says that
14% of American
internet users claim they've stopped downloading music, but that
the number of people downloading has been steadily growing again over
the last few months. The study has a few problems, however. First,
it's all based on asking people about their activities, and
considering the publicity campaign, it's easy to imagine a heavy file
sharer saying they don't download any music because they don't want to
risk opening themselves up to a lawsuit. Furthermore, the study does
not appear to distinguish between what kind of music is being
"downloaded." They seem to lump together downloading unauthorized
files, using paid download stores like iTunes, or even legitimate
downloads directly from a musician's own website.
Arizona Land's Ups and Downs
Arizona Land's Ups and Downs
12/28/2004 05:27 PMThe company talks down a recent inexplicable stock run-up.
Trading the Ups and Downs of Congestion
Trading the Ups and Downs of Congestion
01/06/2004 10:29 AMTheStreet.com Jan 6 2004 9:16AM ET
Attack downs Web giants
Attack downs Web giants
06/16/2004 09:56 AMCNN Jun 16 2004 1:55PM GMT
Week in review: Google's ups and downs
Week in review: Google's ups and downs
08/20/2004 12:26 PMThe search giant's long-awaited public offering finally makes it to
the street, but the search is still on for Microsoft's Windows update.
Internet attack downs Web giants
Internet attack downs Web giants
06/15/2004 06:23 PMCNN-1 hour agodisrupted access to large Web sites including those run
by Yahoo Inc., Google, and Microsoft for up to two hours early
Tuesday, according to Web tracker ...
'Faltering' market downs MatchNet IPO
'Faltering' market downs MatchNet IPO
08/12/2004 04:46 PMThe online dating company cancels plans to sell its shares to the
public, citing a weakening market for Net-related stock launches.
Upgrade glitch downs AT&T Wireless' CRM
system
Upgrade glitch downs AT&T Wireless' CRM
system
11/10/2003 11:09 PMCompany temporarily loses one if its key account management systems.
Motorola's ups and downs make it a tough
call
Motorola's ups and downs make it a tough
call
11/18/2003 08:10 AMChicago Tribune Nov 18 2003 7:11AM ET
'System failure' downs Vodafone network
'System failure' downs Vodafone network
07/19/2004 09:35 AMThe Register Jul 19 2004 1:59PM GMT
Denial of Service Attack Downs
DoubleClick
Denial of Service Attack Downs
DoubleClick
07/28/2004 02:46 PMWorldCom slices $79.8B off balance sheet
in write-downs
WorldCom slices $79.8B off balance sheet
in write-downs
03/14/2003 06:18 PMThe write-off included a $45 billion value related to WorldCom's
goodwill, which was completely taken off the books, and a reduction in
the value of equipment and other intangible assets from $44.8 billion
to $10 billion.
Patch demand briefly downs Windows
Update
Patch demand briefly downs Windows
Update
04/15/2004 03:56 AMZDNet UK Apr 15 2004 7:52AM GMT
[f2c] Municipal wifi
[f2c] Municipal wifi
03/31/2005 02:36 PM(After a morning with no women speakers or questioners, we now have a
panel with a woman on it. Yay.) J.H. Snider moderates. [Sketchy
coverage follows...] Varinia Robinson is in charge of Philadelphia's
municipal wifi project. You have to get your muni wifi in by Jan. 1,
2006, or else you have go to your local provider. This was done to
protect "competition." The city thinks it'll cost $10.5M to build it
and $1.5M annually to maintain it. It will cover 45 square miles and
provide a mnimum of 1mb up and down. It's an ubiquitous indoor
network. To break...
How to Pay for Municipal Networks
How to Pay for Municipal Networks
09/21/2004 02:46 PMSome municipalities may have already learned some lessons about
offering telecom services that they can consider when deciding to
build Wi-Fi networks: Some of the most successful municipal offerings
of wired telecom services started out with small trial networks and
were offered by municipalities that already offer utility services to
customers. But beyond whether a municipality has experience with
billing and marketing a service, Wi-Fi presents a bunch of additional
uncertainties. In the wired example, in many cases the market doesn't
have any other option for broadband Internet access and customers
definitely pay for the access. In the case of Wi-Fi, in many cases
other service providers may already offer wireless access. Plus,
cities have to decide whether they want to offer access for free or
for a fee. If they want to deliver free networks, they have to decide
how to fund it, considering both the initial outlay and ongoing
support costs. Ultimately, citizens of communities may end up
deciding. In St. Cloud, Fla., the city is trying to decide how to pay
for the ongoing maintenance of the network and will likely ask
residents to decide on a ballot referendum. If municipalities decide
to ask residents to pay for access, they have to hope they can cover
their costs. At this stage in the market, based on the experiences of
commercial Wi-Fi providers, it's not clear that an operator can make
money from for-fee networks....
New Twist on Municipal Hotspots
New Twist on Municipal Hotspots
06/28/2004 02:42 PMManchester, New Hampshire, plans to announce in mid-July that a
hotspot will be available downtown for anyone to use free for one
hour: It appears that the city decided it wanted a network and put out
a request for proposal. Signull Technologies offered to fund and build
the network and then offer one free hour per day per user. An hour a
day might be useful for folks who may want to check email during their
lunch break or for visitors to town. The agreement sounds like a good
way for Signull to pull in potential customers and for the city to
offer a useful service for visitors and residents....
Ohio Tries to Suppress Municipal-Fi
Ohio Tries to Suppress Municipal-Fi
12/19/2004 03:18 PM Esme Vos dissects the latest state bill that caters to incumbent
operators: Existing law prevents municipalities--with their tremendous
tax-free advantages as opposed to the massive subsidization of telcos
and cable operators--from running their own cable TV systems. A
modified bill, introduced by a graduate of the colleges of Zig Zigler
and Dale Carnegie, adds telecom services to that mix. Esme would like
to know which companies are behind this particular emendation to
Ohio's law. [link indirectly via GigaOm]...
Let's Ban Municipal Networks Nationwide
Let's Ban Municipal Networks Nationwide
06/05/2005 10:56 PM Anti-Federalism rears its ugly head with Rep. Sessions's bill: The
bill would ban municipal networks where any competitive service
existed in the municipal area of governance. A grandfather clause
allows existing services to proceed. The language of the "Preserving
Innovation in Telecom Act of 2005" is so hilariously broad and
ill-defined that it could kill all kinds of projects that the
incumbent carriers this is meant to protect would support or are
involved in deploying. It has such a broad grandfather clause that it
could allow massive projects to continue if even a tiny portion of the
service was in use. I doubt it will go anywhere because in its current
form, it's a shotgun full of buckshot, not a surgical weapon. A broad
consortium of businesses and public policy groups will certainly try
to get it killed. I doubt it will get many supporters because of its
broad sweep. For instance, this bill would kill all future airport
Wi-Fi that's not already built out because government entities would
be unable to "provide" services if Wi-Fi were operating anywhere else
in the airport authority's municipality's domain. It's pretty easy to
read that interpretation....
World warms to municipal Wi-Fi
World warms to municipal Wi-Fi
06/25/2004 04:11 AMFrom Taipei to New York, it's wireless a-go-go
Los Angeles Looks to Build Municipal
Wi-Fi
Los Angeles Looks to Build Municipal
Wi-Fi
06/24/2004 09:36 AMThe Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Project is looking for
proposals to build a free Wi-Fi zone in downtown: MuniWireless.com has
the RFP (request for proposal)....
Municipal Wireless Goes Beyond Internet
Access
Municipal Wireless Goes Beyond Internet
Access
07/29/2004 05:22 PMWi-Fi Planet Jul 29 2004 8:18PM GMT
Free municipal WiFi in Jerusalem
Free municipal WiFi in Jerusalem
09/05/2004 11:56 PM
Xeni Jardin:
Following up on
last week's post about the city of Philadelphia considering free
wireless 'net access for all, BoingBoing reader
cyphunk says, "Pfff. Jerusalem
(Israel) is already rolling out free wifi for the ENTIRE city --
starting with major commercial areas."
Link to news story.
PA incumbents get to veto municipal wifi
PA incumbents get to veto municipal wifi
02/01/2005 09:09 PMFrom an article by Wes Simonds at Wifi Planet: The terms of the bill
essentially give Verizon and other local carriers the right to veto
all citywide hotspot plans similar to Philadelphia's in the state of
Pennsylvania beginning Jan. 1, 2006. As Jock Gill suggests, we could
use some model legislation to preempt this type of anti-user,
corporate welfare in other states. [Thanks to Dewayne Hendricks for
the link.]...
Bill would thwart municipal Internet
Bill would thwart municipal Internet
02/01/2005 09:14 PMIndystar.com - Tue Feb 1, 08:50 am GMT
Xpress Municipal & Utility Clearance
Xpress Municipal & Utility Clearance
11/03/2003 11:13 AM11/03/03 - Server Ready
Disputing Municipal Network Failures
Disputing Municipal Network Failures
03/19/2005 02:24 AM
The
folks at Tricitybroadband.com have a page that refutes
failures: Many of the anti-municipal networking foes have
released misinformation about what they describe as financially flawed
or failed networks around the U.S. Unfortunately, although there are
certainly municipal services that haven't worked out--there have to be
some failures--the ones that are bandied about are typically
misrepresented. Tricitybroadband.com has a regularly updated page that
provides the official response and financial details refuting this
misinformation.
The point here would be to work with facts: if the facts that the
utilities, cities, or Tricitybroadband is presenting are incorrect,
then other facts could refute them. We could have, say, a real debate
going in which real information was presented, examined, and
conclusions reached.
Grok Description matches for The Ups And Downs Of Municipal Broadband
GrokA matches for The Ups And Downs Of Municipal Broadband
The Ups And Downs Of Municipal Broadband
