June 21, 2006 Is Municipal Wi-Fi A Right? If So, Who Pays? The term "digital divide" is passé and politically incorrect in the context of municipal wireless access. According to industry experts at the MuniWireless Silicon Valley conference, the new nomenclature is "digital inclusion." by Natali Del Conte The term "digital divide" is passé and politically incorrect in the context of municipal wireless access. According to industry experts at the MuniWireless Silicon Valley conference, the new nomenclature is "digital inclusion." MuniWireless, a three-day conference in Santa Clara that began on Monday, was a gathering of venture capitalists, municipal authorities, nonprofit organizations, and software and hardware companies, all eager to bring city-wide wireless connections to the U.S. The conversation was not about whether municipal wireless will become a reality - it was about when, how, and, most importantly, how much. Chris Sacca, principal of new business development for Google, likened the conference to the Democratic National Convention. "Whenever I talk to vendors in this space, I can't get a straight answer," Sacca said. "I can't get anyone to talk about the true capabilities of their products. It reminds me of the Democratic convention: You've got a lot of good guys working for a good cause but they get so caught up in their own business that they lose elections. So I'm going to ask everyone to remember why we're building these networks in the first place. I think it's a noble aim and I think everyone is here because they actually do care about promoting access." True, everyone was in agreement that lack of "digital inclusion" does in fact create, for lack of a better term, a "divide." Sidney Levy, a panelist with Media Alliance, a nonprofit in San Francisco, pointed out that more than half of the people of color in San Francisco do not have access to the Internet. "We're talking about very specific people," Levy said. "They are disadvantaged people in general. We don't have to sell them the idea that the Internet is important for them. They know that. They realize it has to do with healthcare, jobs and community engagement. Those are the issues that people want solutions for." But each municipality's red tape is unique. According to Sacca, this is where the "geeks" who are designing wireless networks get stumped. Additionally, the bureaucratic process tends to take so long that the technology runs the risk of being obsolete by the time a wireless model is selected. "Commercial efforts to broadly deploy [Wi-Fi] are going to be driven by a different economic model, [versus] the cities that will be saying, 'Well, do we put in a new park or do we update our wireless network?'" said Rich Redelfs, a venture capitalist with Foundation Capital. "I think we'll have to think about how the technology change will affect the way we're deploying." The barriers that stand in the way of municipal wireless are unfortunately still quite literal: walls, stucco, brick, buildings, elevators. Hardware experts were eager to discuss exactly how many nodes it will take to reach each and every computer in a city. One answer is Motorola's new software called MeshPlanner, which is capable of calculating the signal strength of any given mesh design based on three-dimensional digital terrain photos. "A lot of people just do the old spray and pray method: they put nodes up and drive around and test," said Lee Black, sales manager for Motorola. "A lot of it comes down to the Verizon guys' 'Can you hear me now?' But what's tough about that is that you don't know how much data can be delivered." Motorola also announced new hardware for the mesh network called HotZone Duo. Pricing for the product will not be released until July, which begs the ultimate wireless question: For free or not for free? If there's no such thing as a free lunch, it is probably unreasonable to expect a free wireless connection. Somebody will have to pay for it — and there was little agreement as to whom and how. Alec Ross, a panelist from One Economy, a broadband nonprofit organization, said that "low-income people will spend up to $20 per month on broadband." "I personally don't think that a network has to be free to access the low-income community," Ross said. But, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 30 percent of U.S. households still claim to use dial-up connections because it's cheap. Jonathan Baltuch, president of MRI, discussed the March 2006 launch of citywide wireless in St. Cloud, Florida, which he deemed a huge success. Over half of the households in St. Cloud are using the advertisement-supported network but still, this model has yet to be definitively proven, he said. Additionally, the big broadband providers such as AT&T, often referred to at the conference as "the incumbents," should not be expected to sit back and watch their market share leak away to free WiFi. "One of the things that is happening now is the battle of net neutrality," said Esme Vos, founder of Muniwireless.com, the organization behind the conference. "It's not a concept that belongs to a few people in the valley. I think it's really outrageous how much money people pay for access. You think of entire communities being red-lined out, and it is completely inexcusable." Despite the logistical disagreements, the approximately 400 people at MuniWireless could at least agree that city-wide wireless will eventually materialize, and users can expect it to continue to evolve, much like (and perhaps along with) the mobile phone industry. "It's all happening right now, but it's not live today - otherwise, there would be 4,000 people at this conference," said Bill Gurley, venture capitalist with Venrock Associates. "Fortune favors the bold. Risk and reward are related, but today it's still the innovator/early adopter phase for these types of networks." Regardless, as Redelfs put it, "This is not your father's Ethernet."