Citywide WiFi Activity in Atlanta, Madison
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Atlanta to launch citywide WiFi network
The city of Atlanta plans to launch WiFi access across a number of major buildings and facilities in the metro area. The city has partnered with WiFi carrier Biltmore Communications and will market the paid-access WiFi service as Atlanta FastPass. Atlanta will launch WLAN service in a large area around City Hall this month. The city will launch WiFi access in the Atlanta airport by March 2005. Access prices will depend on the location where service is offered. Atlanta plans to eventually make WiFi access citywide.
There is a fear that Georgia's leading telecoms and cable companies will try to stop Atlanta's plans for a citywide WiFi network. Atlanta's deal with Biltmore may be outside the typical municipal bans (there is currently no such ban in Georgia) because a third-party has been contracted to provide service and the service will split revenues between the city and the wireless ISP.
For more on Atlanta's plan to launch citywide WiFi see this story from the Atlanta Business Chronicle:
msnbc.msn.com (copied immediately below:)
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Wi-Fi network could become nation's largest
By Ryan Mahoney / Atlanta Business Chronicle
Updated: 7:00 p.m. ET Dec. 12, 2004
Atlanta's ambitious plan to create the nation's biggest citywide Wi-Fi network is no longer up in the air.
This month, the entire first and second floors of City Hall, including the council chamber and offices, will become one big wireless hotspot. By March 2005, the concourses, atrium and other public areas of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport will follow suit after months of delays.
From there, the network will expand to additional municipal buildings, parks and -- in a notable departure from other cities' Wi-Fi (short for wireless fidelity) rollouts -- office buildings, apartments, hotels, convention centers and other properties under a unique public-private partnership.
Proponents say the system, known as Atlanta FastPass, will let Atlanta compete with cities traditionally viewed as more Wi-Fi friendly -- like San Francisco and Seattle -- attracting tech-savvy businesses, workers and tourists to the area who want to access the Internet and corporate intranets on the go.
And because it is not actually run by the city and should work in conjunction with major telecom providers' own Wi-Fi networks, it also could avoid legal challenges facing municipalities in states from Florida to Pennsylvania.
A Relevant idea
FastPass is the latest creation of Jeff Levy and his newest venture, Biltmore Communications Inc. Levy is best known as the founder of Internet tracking firm RelevantKnowledge Inc. and he once ran the now-defunct eHatchery LLC incubator.
Founded in late 2001 as Open Point Networks Inc., Biltmore's primary line of business is providing broadband services, including Wi-Fi, to Atlanta businesses and residences. The idea for FastPass was born when Levy realized he could link his customers' hotspots together, with their permission, to create a larger network accessible to all of them -- and the public -- through a unified login.
He now has 60 private hotspots on the FastPass network, including many not installed by Biltmore -- from the Georgia World Congress Center to law firm Smith Gambrell & Russell LLP -- plus hundreds more at Georgia Tech and Georgia State University. In fact, Biltmore boasts more wireless access points than any other Atlanta provider. Directory service JiWire Inc. lists 229 in Atlanta and 71,145 worldwide.
"We wanted a way for guests (persons other than Tech students or employees) to use Wi-Fi in areas where we have public spaces, like for conferences," said Ron Hutchins, Tech's chief technology officer. "I liked Jeff's vision."
Visitors to Tech's campus pay $7.95 a day to use the network, but fees vary across the FastPass system depending on who owns the hotspots, and owners share a portion of the revenue with Biltmore. Discounted weekly and monthly passes are available in some places, and the company is speaking with national Wi-Fi providers like T-Mobile and Boingo about getting their users on the system.
"We want to bring in the private sector; not just coffee shops but law firms, accounting firms," Levy said. "I believe you'll see the Cokes and Coxes get on the bandwagon once the city's up and running."
His company's contract of up to five years with the city will be at the center of the FastPass system. Mayor Shirley Franklin's office has long desired to make Atlanta competitive on Wi-Fi, said city chief information officer Abe Kani, but the process didn't really begin in earnest until a request for proposals went out last year.
Biltmore won the account in October and has been installing wireless equipment at City Hall and a separate wired network to support it. The city pays nothing upfront and will get 40 percent of the revenue from users who log into FastPass on city property and 10 percent from those who sign in elsewhere on the network. Pricing on city property is still undetermined, but could be as low as $4 a day.
"The new city courts could be next," Kani said. "City Hall East and Woodruff Park are on the top of the list."
Atlanta could reap $5 million over the life of the deal, with the first $100,000 annually to be invested in information technology and most of the rest going to the general fund. Councilman H. Lamar Willis, himself a technology buff, has drafted a resolution in support of the program.
Airport-bound
FastPass is also bound for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, which is wrapping up an $11 million technology infrastructure upgrade. Once Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. (NYSE: BLS) finishes laying down a new airport-wide fiber-optic backbone, the local arm of Metuchen, N.J.-based Sita Corp. will add the wireless component and Biltmore will bring the airport into its network.
Hartsfield-Jackson was to have been fully Wi-Fi enabled this fall, but a protest by one of the contractors competing with Sita delayed the project until March, said airport chief information officer Lance Lyttle. FastPass pricing at Hartsfield-Jackson has not yet been determined, but Lyttle said other airports are charging $3 to $9 a day.
The entire FastPass system could still be held up by an entirely different sort of delay, however. With several large cities unveiling plans for citywide Wi-Fi networks over the past few months, big telecom companies like Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) have blasted their efforts as unfair competition and pushed for state-level legislation banning the practice.
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that such legislation is legal. BellSouth, which is testing Wi-Fi service in Charlotte, N.C., has no immediate plans to oppose the FastPass system, according to spokeswoman LeAnn Boucher.
Paul Arne, a partner with law firm Morris, Manning & Martin LLP, said that a challenge could still arise. Arne also said he thought Wi-Fi rates might have to drop significantly to encourage more than occasional use.
In the meantime, Atlanta's 3rd Wave Inc., which recently changed its name to Ripple Inc., has amassed 55 hotspots metrowide since the start of 2004. Companies pay 3rd Wave to set up Wi-Fi at their place of business and let their customers log on for free.
"I think it [for pay Wi-Fi] will quickly become usurped by those that want to offer it for free." said 3rd Wave founder Mike Landman. "It's becoming an expectation for customers, like having a bathroom."
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PLUS: Madison, Wisconsin, tries to skirt new telecom regulations with plans to launch a citywide WiFi network. Blog Entry:
muniwireless.com (repeat copy of this blog entry):
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Madison, Wisconsin to offer wireless broadband service
Madison, Wisconsin will be providing wireless broadband service throughout the city, the airport and other municipalities in the area, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. The initiative "Wireless Wisconsin" plans to roll out wireless service not just in the city, but at the airport and in other municipalities in the county. The city, county and state have issued an RFP seeking a vendor to provide the service. No tax dollars will be used; instead, the vendor will pay for the right to run the network and will be allowed to charge fees to end users. This sounds more like a franchise model.
To download the RFP, go to wisconsin.gov. You can also go directly to ftp://doaftp04.doa.state.wi.us/doadocs/State_WiFI_RFP.pdf. The deadline for responses is January 10, 2004 so sharpen those pens and get going.
Wisconsin restrictions on muni broadband
Wisconsin is one of those states that recently enacted a law (Wisconsin Act 278 which entered into effect on July 1, 2004) placing restrictions on municipalities that wish to offer telecommunications services. The Act contains several exceptions, e.g. for municipalities that have no existing commercial broadband service and municipalities that will NOT deliver broadband directly to end users. So Madison can deploy a network and allow several providers to use it; it can also put out a tender seek one or more providers to deliver access.
Recently, the Wisconsin State Telecommunications Association (WSTA) and the Wisconsin Cable Communications Association (WCCA) brought a lawsuit against the municipality of Jackson because the town dared to deploy its own broadband network. The municipality's lawyer, Anita Gallucci, told me that the judge dismissed the complaint because the WSTA and the WCCA failed to establish that they had standing to bring the lawsuit. As a result, the case was never decided on the merits. It is interesting to note that Jackson has always asserted that Act 278 did not apply to them because they deployed their network in November 2003 (well before the Act went into effect). And even if the Act did apply, the city was in compliance because it had held a public hearing and conducted cost-benefit analyses before creating the utility.
I wrote an article back in January 5, 2004 about Wisconsin municipalities deploying wireless broadband networks (click here to read the story). Jackson is one of those I mentioned in this story. Indeed, the town council believed then as it does now, that broadband is absolutely necessary for economic development. That the state has passed a law restricting municipalities from deploying these networks - no doubt lobbied by the incumbent providers - is very troubling. I am sure the state legislature has no intentions to block economic growth, but the question remains: according to whose timetable should these networks be deployed? Can municipalities afford to wait? Why should a city be held hostage to a incumbent operator's plans when the city needs broadband right away and can deploy it cost effectively?
We have already seen the controversy over Philadelphia's planned wireless broadband network and the recently passed Pennsylvania House Bill 30. I believe lawsuits will arise in many states that have these restrictions to test the validity and the limits of these laws. At the very least, these cases will make people realize that the needs of communities do not always coincide with the desire of private telecommunications companies to make lots of money.
Note: Thanks so much to Scott Meske, Governmental Affairs Director of the Municipal Electric Utilities of Wisconsin for providing me with information about Wireless Wisconsin and to Anita Gallucci of Boardman, Suhr, Curry & Field LLP for responding to my questions about the WSTA lawsuit against Jackson.
Posted by Muniwireless December 10, 2004
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FAC
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