There were no precedents in early 2004 when Chaska, Minn., got
fed up with the prices of local DSL and cable services and deployed
a broadband wireless network for its citizens. The Minneapolis
exurb of 20,000 dug US$1 million out of its capital improvement
budget, built a Tropos Wi-Fi mesh, and set itself up as a wireless
ISP.
This ripple in the pond of municipal infrastructure advancements
quickly became a tsunami. By the middle of last year,
MuniWireless.com noted that it was "raining RFPs," and The Yankee
Group analyst Lindsay Schroth estimates there are some 320 U.S.
municipalities that have or are planning to cover themselves with
broadband wireless networks.
Zero to 320 in less than two years is remarkable, given that
local governments tend to lag rather than lead technology advances.
However, U.S. cities large and small see the unmatched economy,
mobility and application benefits of an unplugged last-mile
solution, and are employing a variety of business models and
architectures to get them.
The best approach depends on local circumstances, but Schroth
sees some kind of public/private partnership as "an absolute must.
Government doesn't have the capability to build, market and deliver
innovative services. A better approach is for a service provider to
build a wholesale network with a city as its anchor tenant," she
says.
No service provider stepped up to the plate in Chaska, but
larger cities such as Minneapolis and San Francisco have no dearth
of suitors for their proposed municipal networks. Philadelphia
struck an agreement last October for EarthLink to blanket the city
with a broadband wireless infrastructure, deploying a Wi-Fi mesh
for service delivery and using WiMAX backhaul.
The plan has competing wireless ISPs (WISP) joining city-owned
Wireless Philadelphia as EarthLink tenants, with WP getting a
percentage of the fees. Philadelphia also expects annual savings of
about $2 million from replacing dial-up access and T-1 links used
by field crews and remote facilities.
Meanwhile smaller cities have been beating their big-city
cousins to the punch, following Chaska's lead and building their
own networks. Fort Worth, Texas, exurb Granbury was using broadband
wireless to connect city buildings, and wanted high-speed access
for laptops that a Homeland Security grant had put in its police
cars.
However, Texas municipalities can't be ISPs, so Granbury is
partnering with local WISP Frontier Broadband. Frontier operates
the Tropos-based network, using virtual LANs (VLAN) to separate
public Internet access from the city's official traffic.
Down on the Gulf coast, Corpus Christi was looking to leverage
about 70 miles of fiber interconnecting its traffic signals. In
February 2004 the city covered 24 of its 147 square miles with a
Wi-Fi mesh that uses Alvarion's pre-WiMAX technology for backhaul
when direct fiber connections aren't available. The rest of the
buildout is scheduled for completion in August, for a total cost of
$7.1 million. The infrastructure's excess capacity is sold to local
ISPs.
"This provides more of a level playing field to innovative ISPs
who don't have or can't afford to build their own infrastructures,"
says Leonard Scott, an MIS business unit manager for Corpus
Christi. "The result is more varied and competitive offerings to
city residents."
South Sioux City, Neb., a suburb of Sioux City, Iowa, has taken
WiMAX a step further by rejecting Wi-Fi for a mobile pre-WiMAX
solution from NextNet. Like Granbury, South Sioux City got a grant
for police car laptops, and wanted to provide them with high-speed
access. Officers got a taste of this when they drove through one of
the city's Wi-Fi hot spots, but elsewhere they had to communicate
at a frustrating 9600 baud.
In August 2004, the city used reserve utility funds to install
four base stations on each of two water towers, leveraging its
existing fiber infrastructure for backhaul. The wireless network is
operated by partner EverTek, which carries government traffic on
one VLAN and sells public Internet access on another, returning 15
percent of that revenue to the city.
South Sioux City also plans to test fiber to the home, but
broadband wireless "is clearly the cost-effective last-mile choice
right now, and it also provides a huge amount of flexibility for
applications," says Lance Martin, communications coordinator for
South Sioux City.
Initial municipal applications include public safety, automated
utility meter reading and inspection services.
In South Sioux City, images captured by some 125 surveillance
cameras can be viewed remotely on laptops in police cruisers and by
dispatchers. An automatic vehicle location (AVL) application
constantly transmits location information, enabling the city to see
where each car is in real time. If police are chasing a suspect who
tosses evidence out the window, a screen tap pinpoints the location
while the pursuit continues.
The AVL application also could help the public deal with
inclement weather. During snowstorms, a track of "breadcrumbs" on
the city's Web site would show which streets have been plowed.
Similarly, children could watch the progress of school buses from
the warmth of their homes and emerge no sooner than necessary.
High-speed mobile access also is streamlining building
inspection services. Philadelphia CIO Dianah Neff reckons it can
save her city about two hours per day, per inspector, which will
clear permits faster.
And it should, if Corpus Christi's experience is any indication.
Inspectors now use high-speed access to begin the reporting process
in the field, saving labor and reducing by 25 percent the time it
takes to put up a new building, Scott reports.
Application ideas abound as initial deployments meet or exceed
expectations and cities look to leverage and expand them. These
include telemetry systems for controlling and monitoring pump
houses, water towers and electrical substations. The networks also
provide a more flexible and cost-effective platform for
prisoner-release programs that utilize ankle-bracelet
monitoring.
"Mobile broadband wireless is a revolutionary technology that
will have as much impact as the Web did in the 1990s on how we
live, work and play in the 21st century," Neff concludes.
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