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January 31, 2006 • 3:11 pm 0

Grand Rapids requires Network Neutrality in municipal wireless network

“Glenn Fleishman”:1 sent me a note that Grand Rapids, MI has required that Network Neutrality be a part of their municipal wireless network:

2.2.1 Open Service Provider Network
* Fair and Equal Access: The network shall be open to multiple Service Providers (SPs) and Content Providers (CPs) on a fair and equal basis to deliver services and content to end users (subscribers) on a retail basis.
* Wholesale Access: SPs and CPs may acquire wholesale bandwidth or peering access to the network to support innovative content or applications.
* No Blocking: The network shall not exclude access to any Internet content or block any network ports, except when required to deal with network security incidents.

This is how all networks should be operated, and are requirements for all municipal networks.

[1]http://www.wifinetnews.com/
[2]http://www.ci.grand-rapids.mi.us/index.pl?page_id=3928

Filed under: Muniwireless, News, Policy

January 31, 2006 • 8:43 am 0

New book about Philadelphia municipal wireless network

“Fighting the Good Fight”:1 appears to be the first in what I am sure are going to be a number of books about strategies for municipal networks. Craig Settles, a business strategist, writes about the still to be deployed Philadelphia municipal wireless network.

The book:

* recounts Philadelphia’s efforts against incredible obstacles to launch its initiative;
* includes interviews with city officials, steering committee members, constituent groups and vendors involved with the project;
* helps you develop the business case for your government’s use of municipal wireless technology; and
* presents key lessons to help you successfully deploy wireless technology.

I really have no idea about this book, as I haven’t read it yet. I haven’t heard about any work that he’s done in the municipal wireless space — I suspect he is writing mostly from the general strategy angle, and doesn’t have much specific municipal experience yet. He was, apparently, the Director of Electronic Commerce for Metricom, the company that deployed an early urban wireless system called Ricochet.

[1]http://hudsonhousepub.com/fgf/

Filed under: Muniwireless, News, Policy

January 30, 2006 • 2:44 pm 0

Municipal Broadband: Resistance is Futile

“Wi-Fi Planet reports”:2 on a new research report by analyst Pam Duffey with “visiongain”:3, “Municipal Broadband Networks: Market impact and implications, 2006-2011″:1

bq. Legal opposition in some states notwithstanding, Duffey says in a statement, “We believe resistance toward Muni networks is futile.” She says the idea that a municipality should provide the network, or at least the means for widespread broadband, is quickly becoming not just an option but a duty.

bq. “By 2010/2011,” says Duffey, “we believe the majority of cities and townships in the US will have a municipal wireless network in place, and the focus then will be on uniting them into a seamless, if not centralized, national network.” Many, she says, will offer wireless broadband service as a utility along with gas, electricity and water.

[1]http://www.visiongainintelligence.com/reportDetail.aspx?reportId=1271&tab=1
[2]http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/news/article.php/3580231
[3]http://www.visiongainintelligence.com/

Filed under: Community Wireless, Muniwireless

January 29, 2006 • 10:00 pm 0

Wireless Networking in the Developing World book

A number of wireless technology hackers and experts — including me, though my role was admittedly much smaller than many — got together during and after the “World Summit for Free Information Infrastructures”:2 to write the definitive book on wireless networking design and deployment. This past friday, after 3 months of work by the core team, the book is finally finished. *Wireless Networking in the Developing World* is a great resource that NYCwireless has contributed content to (about “Spectropolis”:3 and Power over Ethernet). If you have any questions about wi-fi technology, community wireless, and its applications, this book should answer all of them. And if it doesn’t, let us know so we can include it in version 2!

bq. London, England — Imagine trying to piece together a wireless network with no manuals, sporadic and slow access to the Internet, inadequate tools, a shortage of supplies, and in the most inclement weather. The authors of a recently published book, “Wireless Networking in the Developing World” don’t need to imagine. They have been doing so for years.

bq. In almost every village, town, or city in the developing world, there are people who can build just about anything. With the right know-how, this can include wireless networks that connect their community to the Internet. The book addresses what Rob Flickenger, the book’s editor and lead author, calls a chicken-and-egg problem: “While much information about building wireless networks can be found on-line, that presents a problem for people in areas with little or no connectivity”, said Flickenger from his workshop in Seattle. The book covers topics from basic radio physics and network design to equipment and troubleshooting. It is intended to be a comprehensive resource for technologists in the developing world, providing the critical information that they need to build networks. This includes specific examples, diagrams and calculations, which are intended to help building wireless networks without requiring access to the Internet.

bq. In the developing world, one book can often be a library, and to a techie this book may well be a bible. Access to books is difficult where there are few libraries or book stores, and there is often little money to pay for them. “Our book will be released under a Creative Commons license, so everybody can copy and distribute it free of charge. That doesn’t mean it is a ‘cheap’ book. I think it is a great book,” stated Corinna ‘Elektra’ Aichele, one of the books co-authors who was recently installing wireless networks in Bangladesh.

bq. The book has been released under a Creative Commons license, meaning that it is free to download, print and modify, even for a profit, as long as proper credit is given and any modifications or copies made are shared under the same terms. For Flickenger, who has already published several successful books, publishing a book for free has been an interesting endeavor. He explains, “the Book Sprint team felt that the need for a freely available collection of practical information greatly outweighed any short term profit.”

bq. For the authors, all of whom spend their time building networks in the developing world, their pay-back will be having a resource to hand to their beneficiaries. “I wasn’t paid and I don’t expect to earn money with it, though that would be nice,” stated Elektra.

bq. The authors, all experts in the field of wireless community networking, gathered in London for a “Book Sprint” last October. The book sprint was the brain-child of Tomas Krag, one of the book’s authors, and was to be the kickstart of a 3-month effort culminating in a finished book. The trans-continental team spent a week in the aging Lime House Town Hall near the Thames for a week, fleshing out the details of the book while sitting around a mix of old tables, powering their notebooks over yards of extension cords and with stacks of power adapters. Flickenger explains, “the idea was to get a hand picked, tightly focused team of experts together and aggressively work on a book project.” The team wrote, edited, and have now released the 250 page manual in only three months. Though he admits it was difficult to motivate a team who was not being paid, especially over the holidays, Flickenger’s quiet persistence prevailed.

bq. The authors also hope that by releasing the book into the “Creative Commons” that it can be improved, expanded, corrected and translated. Efforts are underway to translate the book into other languages and to provide it to those who need it most, the 5 to 6 billion who don’t yet have access to the Internet today.

bq. The book is available in PDF form and for sale in print at the book’s website: “http://wndw.net/”:1

bq. Ian Howard, co-Author, Limehouse BookSprint Team

[1]http://wndw.net/
[2]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2005/09/15/world-summit-on-free-information-infrastructure/
[3]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/spectropolis/

Filed under: Community Wireless, WSFII

January 27, 2006 • 10:10 am 0

China will pass US in Broadband Lines by late 2006

Website Optimization has “released a study”:1 that predicts that China is going to have more broadband this year than the US:

bq. China will pass the US in total broadband subscribers by the end of 2006. The US fell to 19th overall in broadband penetration worldwide, and is in danger of being passed by Slovenia in early 2007. Meanwhile, in December 2005 US broadband penetration broke 65% for the first time among active Internet users.

Of interesting note, the study reports that the US has fallen to 19th in the broadband rankings, down from 15th last year.

[1]http://www.websiteoptimization.com/bw/0601/

Filed under: News, Policy

January 25, 2006 • 8:44 am 0

FreePress: Internet Freedom Under Fire: Act Now

Today I received an email from “FreePress”:2 about their fight for “Network Neutrality”:3. The email summarizes the issue well, and highlights “a new site”:1 at FreePress where you can send a letter to your ISP and the Government that you want “Network Neutrality”:3 enforced.

bq. After destroying TV and radio, mega-media corporations are scheming to control what content you can view and which services you can use online.

bq. Streaming video, Internet phones, podcasting and online games are the future of the Internet. But companies like Verizon, AT&T and Comcast want Congress to let them deliver only their own products at super-high speeds … while sticking the rest of us in the slow lane.

bq. This predatory scheme would be a dead end for independent voices and Internet innovators: bloggers, producers, and any new channels and services that might compete with the conglomerates.

bq. The only way to stop them is to raise hell right now:

bq. Tell Big Media and Congress: Hands Off Our Internet. Go to “http://www.freepress.net/action/neutrality”:1

bq. From its beginnings, the Internet was built on a cooperative, democratic ideal. The infrastructure’s only job was to move data between users — regardless of where it came from or what it contained.

bq. This “network neutrality” fostered a medium that did not exclude anyone, allowed for far-reaching innovations, and created the Internet as we know it.

bq. Past experience shows that when large media companies are left to their own devices, the result is content and services that serve nothing but their bank accounts. An open and independent Internet is the antidote to these media gatekeepers.

bq. If big media companies are allowed to limit the fastest services to those who can pay their toll, upstart Web services, consumers, bloggers and new media makers alike all would be cut off from the digital revolution.

bq. Tell Big Media and Congress: Hands Off Our Internet. Go to “http://www.freepress.net/action/neutrality”:1

bq. Free Press will deliver a letter to the CEO of your broadband provider and send copies to your members of Congress, urging them to write “network neutrality” into law.

bq. Act now. We must defend our Net freedoms before we lose them altogether.

bq. Onward,

bq. Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
www.freepress.net

[1]http://www.freepress.net/action/neutrality
[2]http://www.freepress.net
[3]/network-neutrality

Filed under: Community Wireless, Network Neutrality, Policy

January 19, 2006 • 9:15 am 1

Advocates of Wi-Fi in Cities Learn Art of Politics

A “great article”:1 in the New York Times (“same article on C|NET”:2):

bq. January 19, 2006

bq. Advocates of Wi-Fi in Cities Learn Art of Politics

bq. By GLENN FLEISHMAN
SEATTLE, Jan. 18 – The idea of building citywide wireless networks from the community level was suspiciously simple back in 2000, although the plans sounded like the work of underground revolutionaries. “All of us were very idealistic, and all quite strongly opinionated,” said Adam Shand, founder of Personal Telco, which had visions of such a network in Portland, Ore.

bq. There as elsewhere, it was seen as a three-step process.

bq. First, build home-brew Wi-Fi antennas and develop software to make outdoor wireless networks affordable and practical.

bq. Second, persuade thousands of people in each city to stick Wi-Fi antennas out their windows, on their roofs or in their places of business to serve collectively as the nodes of a network. (Some groups sought to share existing commercial broadband Internet access – often regardless of whether an Internet service provider allowed that kind of sharing – while others wanted to build a separate community network.)

bq. Third, link those thousands of nodes into neighborhood networks that would themselves connect into a cloud of free citywide Wi-Fi coverage. That’s free as in free beer as well as free as in freedom: most advocates envisioned no restrictions on content or participation, and no access charges. In contrast, almost all early Wi-Fi hot spots were pinpoints of service, had fees attached and restricted use.

bq. Step 2 was never completed, which is why victory speeches seem, at first glance, out of place. Nonetheless, “community wireless accomplished spectacularly well what it set out to do,” said Dana Spiegel, president of NYCwireless, a volunteer wireless advocacy group in Manhattan.

bq. While attendance at some community networking groups has plummeted and some smaller groups have disappeared, their technical and political impact has never been higher. Wireless advocates no longer dangle dangerously from rooftops mounting antennas built inside potato-chip cans, although some still provide technical help to business owners and nonprofit groups in creating free Wi-Fi hot spots.

bq. “The problems that were hard in 2001 were technical ones,” Mr. Spiegel said. “Now, they’re personal and relationship and political ones. The technology, we almost don’t even think about it anymore.”

bq. Greg Richardson, president of Civitium, a consulting firm, says that movement was the impetus for government-run citywide wireless Internet plans. Mr. Richardson has been a consultant on municipal wireless policy and technical issues for Philadelphia, San Francisco and other cities.

bq. Community wireless gave municipal planners “the validation that a lot of those ideas could work,” Mr. Richardson said. Early and continuing municipal efforts to provide small areas of free access in parks and downtown districts were and still are often created in conjunction with these community groups.

bq. The move from building physical networks to building political influence, many advocates say, stems in part from an August 2004 forum organized by the Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network in Illinois.

bq. At the event, many community wireless leaders met for the first time. Sessions were conducted with politicians and members of nonprofit groups interested in diversifying media ownership. Sascha D. Meinrath, the network’s project coordinator, said he saw a political awakening hit the technically focused participants.

bq. “We could develop all of these technologies, we could come up with the holy grail of wireless technologies, and then it would be illegal to deploy it,” he said. After they returned from the conference, several wireless advocates became involved in the political debates over municipal broadband. These debates intensified after Philadelphia announced in late 2004 that it would build a citywide Wi-Fi network.

bq. In quick succession, other cities announced their own plans, including Minneapolis; San Francisco; Anaheim, Calif.; and Tempe, Ariz.

bq. Much of the advocates’ involvement has centered on stressing network neutrality, in which a network operator has little say over what devices are used on a network and for what purpose.

bq. The issue became more prominent after recent statements by the chief executive of AT&T (the former SBC) suggesting that content providers like Google might be required to pay fees to reach AT&T’s Internet access customers. Scattered reports also indicate that some access providers may be blocking or interrupting Internet phone services.

bq. Michael Oh of NewburyOpen.net, a commercially sponsored free Wi-Fi zone on Newbury Street in Boston, said, “I don’t think anyone in the SBC world or the policy-making world would have anticipated that there would have been anyone at the table like us when it came to municipal wireless.”

bq. Many wireless advocates said they already had relationships with local politicians, and now were stepping up to the state level; some were contacted by officials trying to make sense of broadband policy. Richard MacKinnon, founder of the Austin Wireless City Project, testified at state hearings in Texas and joined in a successful fight against a bill to restrict municipal broadband service.

bq. Wireless advocates “have done more to bring forward the concerns of network neutrality as well as open access” than anyone else in the political process, Mr. Richardson said. “They have a very loud voice in an advocacy role.”

bq. A policy statement by NYCwireless lists several principles that define network neutrality: a city or network builder must resell service to other Internet service providers, avoid restrictions on content or types of service (like Internet phone service) and allow all legal devices to be connected to the network – meaning that Internet telephone adapters and wireless cameras would be as legitimate as laptop Wi-Fi cards.

bq. Because of concerns over neutrality, many community groups have focused on how to create independent networks that require neither government support nor an Internet connection to be useful.

bq. The Champaign-Urbana network is developing software that allows computers and Wi-Fi gateways to organize into a larger network as they find other nodes. The approach is called mesh networking; the software would be open sourced and distributed at no cost. (Mesh networks are to be the basis of all the municipal Wi-Fi networks currently planned, but are to use commercial equipment and proprietary software.)

bq. Seattle Wireless is taking a different approach to creating fixed networks using wireless equipment. Since 2000, its founder, Matt Westervelt, and other members have planned to create a central point that would act as a relay medium for local groups seeking to connect their offices, create temporary networks for events or offer Internet connections to others.

bq. His organization raised $2,500 for a climber to place network equipment on a cellular tower on Capitol Hill, one of the highest spots in Seattle. The cost of upkeep is to be donated by a private company.

bq. Community advocates want to use both these independent networks and municipal broadband to carry new kinds of locally focused services and data.

bq. Mr. Oh and The Boston Globe (a division of The New York Times Company) are experimenting in locations around Boston with what they call Pulse Points: freestanding Wi-Fi nodes with no Internet connections. These nodes carry only local discussion boards and information.

bq. At a Pulse Point in the South Station train terminal, every other board posting in the early days “was a flame about why there was no free Internet access,” Mr. Oh said. Now, the spot is routinely used to exchange information and personal stories.

bq. Mr. Spiegel said that the transition from hardware and networks to the higher level of programs and politics was inevitable as networks spread.

bq. “In the end, what all of us were trying to do was to change the way people thought about communications,” he said. “The Internet wasn’t something that you sat down at the computer to use, but that it was something that permeated our lives – it just didn’t have the distribution to permeate our lives.”

[1]http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/19/technology/circuits/19wifi.html
[2]http://news.com.com/Advocates+of+citywide+Wi-Fi+learn+art+of+politics/2100-7351_3-6028573.html

Filed under: Community Wireless, Muniwireless, Network Neutrality, New York City, News, NYCwireless, Policy, Urban Wireless

January 17, 2006 • 1:05 pm 1

BellSouth wants new Net fees

According to “an article on MarketWatch”:1:

bq. BellSouth Corp. confirmed Monday that it is pursuing discussions with Internet content companies to levy charges to reliably and speedily deliver their content and services.

bq. Bill Smith, chief technology officer at BellSouth, justified content charging companies by saying they are using the telco’s network without paying for it.

bq. “Higher usage for broadband services drives more costs that we have to recover,” he said in a telephone interview.

bq. He suggested that Apple Computer might be asked to pay a nickel or a dime to insure the complete and rapid transmission of a song via the Internet, which is being used for more and more content-intensive purposes. He cited Yahoo Inc.’s plans to stream reality TV shows as an example.

bq. “It’s the shipping business of the digital age,” Smith said, arguing that consumers should welcome the pay-for-delivery concept.

So, let me get this straight. Right now, I buy my internet service from an ISP, and while that ISP doesn’t guarantee that I will be able to access every single site, they do ensure that I am able to get onto the internet completely, and that any generally available web page will be available to me. This is the definition of how the internet works. This also means that if Apple’s iTunes online store is online and generally accessible, it will be accessible to me just like anyone else on the internet.

Now, Bill Smith and BellSouth are saying that, maybe, if I use BellSouth as my ISP, I won’t be able to get at any generally available internet site that hasn’t paid them to access their network–a network for which I’m already paying a monthly fee. They are saying that, just because I’ve paid them $50 or $100 for internet access, that this fee doesn’t give me access to the internet in general? They are saying that, once I’ve paid them to access their “pipes”, that I should have no expectation to be able to get to any website that I want, or get service from a third party at best-effort broadband speeds?

Normally, such a statement is just hot air, since BellSouth just provides the last mile. But they are the provider of most internet connections in the southeast. And Verizon and AT&T (SBC) have been saying the same thing, and they actually control the pipes that make up the infrastructure of the internet.

So, if Apple doesn’t play along, does that mean that Verizon and AT&T will start refusing to carry their traffic on the internet’s backbone, thereby affecting many more people than just Verizon and AT&T customers?

Seems like this is a great time for the FTC (not even the FCC) to step in. If this were any other industry, this would be considered extortion and racketeering, both very serious crimes in our country.

[1]http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B02432D2D-1EE0-4037-A15F-54B748D6CF26%7D

Filed under: Community Wireless, Network Neutrality, News, Policy

January 14, 2006 • 3:43 pm 0

Lawrence Lessig on Network Neutrality

Lawrence Lessig, famous lawyer and creator of “Creative Commons”:1, “writes about Network Neutrality in his blog”:2.

How did France get it so good? By following the rules the US passed in 1996, but that telecoms never really followed (and cable companies didn’t have to follow): “strict unbundling.” That’s the same in Japan — fierce competition induced by “heavy handed” regulation producing a faster, cheaper Internet. Now of course, no one is pushing “open access” anymore. Net neutrality is a thin and light substitute for the strategy that has worked in France and Japan. But it is regulation, no doubt.

So while it is true that we have had both:

(a) common carrier like regulation applied to the Internet, and
(b) basically no effective regulation applied to the Internet

and it is true that we have had both:

(c) fast, fierce competition to provide Internet service and
(d) just about the worst broadband service of the developed world

it is not true that we had ==(c)== when we had (b).

We had ==(c)== when we had (a), and we have (d) now that we have (b).

But in the world where the President has the inherent authority to wiretap telephones, who would be surprised if facts didn’t matter much.

Broadband is infrastructure — like highways, if not railroads. If you rely upon “markets” alone to provide infrastructure, you’ll get less of it, and at a higher price. (See, e.g., the United States, today.)

[1]http://www.creativecommons.org
[2]http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003290.shtml

Filed under: Community Wireless, Network Neutrality, Policy

January 13, 2006 • 12:18 am 1

American Broadband is Failing. Our Country's Government has Some Explaining to do.

There shouldn’t be a discussion about whether the municipal networks are going to work or not. I dare-say that common sense tells us that some number will be successful, and some number will not. How you evaluate their outcomes relies almost entirely on your point of view.

The real, fundamental problem is that America has slow, expensive, and only partially available broadband when compared to just about every other industrialized nation. This is especially embarrassing considering that we invented the damn technology, and nurtured it for its first two decades.

This is a *fact*. No amount of hewing and hawing, or dancing around the subject will change this.

Another Fact: Our sorry state of broadband has occurred over the past 5 years. A period of time when Conservative Republicans have been running this country and calling (almost) all of the shots.

So, there arise two questions which I want answered by the leaders of this Country, the Republicans in charge, the FCC, and everyone else who’s been running *our country*:

# Why is the state of broadband in America so awful?
# What are you, our leaders, going to do about it?

You who are our leaders claim that you are doing a good job. Well, here we have a great example to the contrary. And I think that we, as the American People, deserve some answers.

And the answer *isn’t* more competition in the future and a more open marketplace with fewer regulations. *That* is an end result of good policy-making. I want to know what you’re doing that’s failing, and what you should be doing instead. If good policy is put into place, more competition in a healthy marketplace will happen by itself.

Filed under: Community Wireless, Muniwireless, Policy

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