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January 29, 2007

Metro Round-Up: Nay, Nay on SF Deal; Belfast (Maine)

By Glenn Fleishman

Four on San Francisco: Two opinion pieces appeared from parties in favor of San Francisco Wi-Fi, but generally opposed to the method and manner by which it appears it will be deployed. A third supports the current plan. A fourth article outlines the costs and nature of a major fiber roll-out.

Becca Vargo Daggett of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, an outspoken advocate of municipal ownership of broadband networks, suggests the city’s Board of Supervisors reject the EarthLink deal brokered by the mayor. She notes that a recently released independent budget analyst report shows that the city consistently decided against checking on the feasibility of municipal ownership. She thinks the EarthLink/Google deal isn’t a good one because of the Wi-Fi bridge requirement, which means that “free” service will still cost something—the cost of a bridge—and that once the deal is in place, there’s little chance for competition.

Sasha Magee over at BeyondChron notes that the coverage area and quality that the contract defines are fairly ambiguous, and wonders why the board should approve a document that doesn’t spell out the requirements in greater detail. Magee thinks the network will be too slow, provide too little revenue to the city to fund digital divide efforts, and be in place for too long.

At the SF Examiner, Heather Hudson of the University of San Francisco thinks the price tag to the city (free), the potential for competition, and the basic level of service are plenty good enough to just go ahead and build.

Finally, the Examiner also looks into fiber to the premises (FTTP), which would cost $560m and take 15 years to build out in the city, but which Supervisor Tom Ammiano is highly interested in as an a complement to Wi-Fi. Ammiano suggests the city lease use of the network to private providers. He’s critical of the Wi-Fi plan because, as others note above, it’s unclear how low-income residents will receive it without spending money.

On the other end of the country, Belfast, Maine, gets yet another wireless option: While rural residents have fewer and worse connection options than those in many (but not all) urban areas, it’s always interesting to look at exceptions. Belfast is a small city tucked in the part of the coast that’s called Down East, and it will have four overlapping wireless data networks. A local provider offer Wi-Fi service across Belfast. An old established provider, Midcoast Internet Solutions, offers broadband wireless already in parts of town (point-to-multipoint); Mainely Wired also covers some of Belfast in a similar fashion; and FairPoint, which is buying Verizon’s landlines, will add wireless service—which kind wasn’t specified.

Posted by Glennf at January 29, 2007 3:30 PM

Categories: Metro-Scale Networks, Municipal

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