Many of the cities that are building successful Wi-Fi networks are those that never had the luxury of dreaming that Earthlink or some other major company would drive by and offer them a great deal. - Esme Voss »www.csmonitor.com/2007/0913/p13s···l?page=1

Spotted a couple articles in my travels that I want to comment on. The first, an article in the Christian Science Monitor pointed out by MuniWireless, relates to two previous entries in this blog (here and here). The CSM article describes how big city wireless projects took a hit with cities and providers realizing that current business models just don't work, while smaller scale networks seem to be much more successful.

Esme Voss of MuniWireless is quoted in the CSM article as saying, "Many of the cities that are building successful Wi-Fi networks are those that never had the luxury of dreaming that Earthlink or some other major company would drive by and offer them a great deal." Esme also says in the article that 'it was this do-it-ourselves attitude that shepherded many of the successes.'

This dovetails nicely with the two previous entries in this blog. In one, I advocated leaving muni-fi to the little guys... the small towns who really need either simply some form of broadband access or small towns that need the alternative. In the other I touched on how the requirements of deploying a municipal network coupled with unsound business strategies, poor planning, political in-fighting, and already burgeoning competition and/or better deals already available make rolling out large scale muni-fi networks difficult, and in some cases unrealistic.

I still believe covering large cities with a muni-fi network is iffy at best right now, unless its deployed in areas where people are unable to afford broadband from the incumbents. Essentially, just large hotspots for now... a move that I think is needed and would work much better than blanketing an entire major city. In other words, cover the areas that need a 'free'/low cost way of access for now until a new strategy is formed to blanket the rest of the city. At least its a step towards one of the main goals of muni-fi - that being to provide a cheaper alternative to the incumbents.

Esme's quote, I think, also points out another flaw in the major providers planning, or maybe a bit of short-sightedness on their part. Instead of deploying in areas that need the technology... areas that would be more than willing to work closely with them to develop a workable and mutually beneficial plan... the large providers decided to swing for the fences too soon and deploy in the larger areas while not really knowing what they, or the cities, were getting into. And so the large providers may have missed their first chance to establish themselves in a lucrative market, while leavng the smaller providers to reap the benefits while providing a much needed service and competition. Another case of the big guys thinking too big and forgetting the little people.

This thinking seems to agree with a quote from wifi jounalist Glen Fleishman (a href="http://wifinetnews.com/">WiFi Net News), who points out small communinities 'such as Brookline, Mass. (population 57,000), knew that Internet providers would be less willing to take a gamble on cities lacking instant name recognition'.

The CSM article points to St' Cloud, Florida as the ideal. In a city of about 28000 residents, the article says that 2/3 of the population have signed up for muni service. Compare that to the 15 to 20 percent range national cable and DSL providers aim for. And this network cost $3 million to deploy. Why? Because its a smaller town that needed the alternative. In the cities, where you have incumbents battling it out, hotspots all over the place, and, in most cases, 3G (and now 4G) mobile coverage, muni-fi will have a hard time finding its place and a model that can compete with what is already offered. In a funny way, it seems like, at least in the big cities, the mere threat of something like muni-fi is part of what is driving the incumbents and mobile operators to out do each other, offer more services, better deals and bundles, and lower prices. Imagine what will happen competition and to prices if they actually figure out a working model for large city deployents.

However, until such a business model is figured out where a large city can offer wireless at significant - or at least comparable - speeds and excellent prices, city-wide muni-fi may be relegated to mainly the public safety/municpal worker niche for the time being. The bottom line is that people always want the most bang for their buck, while the cities and providers want to make the effort worth their while. This is especially true in the big city setting where there are a lot of people who have the money to pay the $10, $20, $30 extra for the significant speed boost they get over current capable muni-fi speeds, and will take it over the convenience.



The second article is, in some ways, a bit worrisome to me. InformationWeek writes about a 'novel setup' in Billings, Montana. Apparently, for the first time, a cable company is entering the muni-fi world by basically extending the already in place cable service over the air. In a collaboration between Fujitsu Network Communications, Bresnan Communications (a telecom company that serves subscribers in four Western states), and BelAir Networks:


"The BelAir100S is actually mounted on, or, more specifically, hangs from the cable strand," said Jim Freeze, senior vice president of marketing & alliances for BelAir Networks, in an e-mail. "It gets power from the cable plant and has a DOCSIS 2.0 interface, so, essentially, it extends cable services over the air."




The article goes on to state, "Bresnan executives noted that many municipal Wi-Fi networks have had difficulties in recent months as they seek to establish large municipal hotspots. "This is a trial by Bresnan to test both the technology and demand for a wireless option for our customers," said Shawn Beqaj, Bresnan's director of government affairs and community development, in an e-mail. Bresnan subscribers can surf the Web and use VoIP and video services in the application, which encompasses downtown Billings. While final customer pricing hasn't been firmed up, existing Bresnan customers will be able to use the Wi-Fi network free-of-charge and non-customers will be charged for the service."

Although extending a cable providers service into WiFi would provide much needed backbone to a network, I can just see the large cablecos looking at this, and thinking "whoa... double-dip!". Comcast muni-fi, anyone? Imagine that... the large cablecos having their cake and eating it too. I don't know if they would deploy in smaller areas, but it certainly could be a (cheaper) way for them to reach areas they couldn't or weren't willing to before. Mo' money...

That aside, the cable-WiFi hybrid idea will probably work very well in areas that have local cable infrastructure in place. The key point being, of course, 'already have a cable infrastructure in place'. It still obviously doesn't answer the problem where there is no infrastructure... the areas that would most benefit from muni-fi deployments (I still think BPL is the way to go in such areas anyway). But it is another solution to deployment problems, and, if successful, could help speed up the spread of muni-fi into many more areas.

However, the thought of the possibility of cablecos jumping into muni-fi automatically makes me wary. After all, muni-fi is, to my mind, kinda for the little guy... and the large cablecos aren't exactly known for thinking about the little guy - or their customers in general in some cases.