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March 14, 2006 • 1:00 am 0

Unstrung: Hotspot Invaders

I was interviewed in an “Unstrung: Hotspot Invaders article”:1 on alternative revenue models for public wireless networks:

bq. Offending users and network operators could be another roadblock for these revenue models. Ad-supported muni WiFi is a terrific idea, says Dana Spiegel, executive director of NYCwireless, which provides free WiFi in Manhattan — but “It’s critical that this advertising shouldn’t interfere with the use of the network.”

bq. NYCwireless uses splash pages that appear when users log onto the network that contain a usage agreement plus an area for logos from supporting organizations. The ads — essentially just logos for the organizations that help fund the network — are confined to the splash page.

bq. “The idea of artificially inserting ads into Websites that are viewed on the network is an appalling idea that has another name: adware,” says Spiegel. “NYCwireless would never endorse any program like that, and we feel it would create a bad experience for the people that use our networks.”

[1]http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp?doc_id=89087&WT.svl=news2_1

Filed under: Community Wireless, Interview, Muniwireless, News

February 10, 2006 • 1:58 pm 0

ViewersChoice.org Interview on Network Neutrality

Yesterday I was video interviewed (through my wireless computer using my iSight) by Marc Strassman for “ViewersChoice.org”:1. You can “read the entire page”:2, or just “watch the video”:3 below.

http://wirelesscommunity.files.wordpress.com/2005/10/spectropolis-press-release1.pdfwp-content/uploads/2006/02/Dana%20Spiegel%20Net%20Neutrality%20Interview%20-%20ViewersChoice.org.mp4

[1]http://www.viewerschoice.org/
[2]http://www.viewerschoice.org/pages/netneutrality4-5551212.html
[3]http://wirelesscommunity.files.wordpress.com/2005/10/spectropolis-press-release1.pdfwp-content/uploads/2006/02/Dana%20Spiegel%20Net%20Neutrality%20Interview%20-%20ViewersChoice.org.mp4

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

February 2, 2006 • 3:43 pm 0

Cities Peg Wi-Fi as Next Must-Have Amenity

I was recently “interviewed for an article”:1 in the Knowledge@W.P. Carey magazine published by the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University:

bq. Robert St. Louis, professor of information technology at the W. P. Carey School of Business, adds that Wi-Fi is just one step in the right direction. “It’s part of the equation,” he says. “Free or low-cost connectivity plus a low-cost computer plus freeware equals the end of the digital divide.”

bq. St. Louis recalls watching a teacher in a financially struggling city school “beg” and scramble for computer equipment to use in the classroom. “Having computers in kids’ hands, and having those kids connected, would allow this teacher to do so many things he can’t do now,” St. Louis says.

bq. It is this kind of philanthropy that fuels NYCwireless, the non-profit organization that has been promoting and establishing public-access Wi-Fi hotspots throughout Manhattan since 2001. “Just as parks have benches and trees, community wireless is a community benefit,” says Dana Spiegel, executive Director of NYCwireless.

bq. Spiegel explains that his group started deploying community wireless in parks and open spaces as a good-neighbor effort, but the group has evolved to also offer access to low-income households that can ill afford the monthly broadband fee. “To raise the family up in terms of lifestyle and resources, they need Internet access,” he says.

bq. …

bq. In Tempe, Ariz., city managers are relying on a private company, MobilePro, to deploy and maintain a wireless network that will be available to the city departments for free and to citizens for reduced subscription fees. “About the time you get this thing built out, WiMax is going to come along,” says Bank One’s Clark. “What leverage does Tempe have to go to their provider and say, ‘Well, now you have to switch to WiMax.’”

bq. NYCwireless chief Spiegel doesn’t view obsolescence as a significant risk, just a circumstance to be factored into the deployment. Spiegel points to the strategy Philadelphia will follow with Earthlink at the helm of that city’s project. “They have a model for how often network equipment will have to be replaced and an estimation of the lifespan of the technology,” he explains. “Wi-Fi is going to be around for the next decade, and over the next five years, it will transform quite a bit. You build that into your plan.”

[1]http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1183

Filed under: Community Wireless, Interview, Muniwireless, NYCwireless

December 4, 2005 • 3:31 pm 0

Interview in the New Haven Advocate: Take My WiFi, Please

I was interviewed for an article in the New Haven Advocate, titled “Take My WiFi, Please”:1, about New Haven’s Muniwireless initiative. This is a great article that really touches on the reasons why a small town (and really any town) would want to support some form of municipal network:

bq. Sometimes, citizens take matters in their own hands. If the residents of an apartment building buy small routers for their apartments, they often have enough coverage radius that the street in front of them becomes a wireless hotspot. Many businesses offer strong wireless signals, knowing that neighbors can use the signal (in our offices, the Omni Hotel “WiFi” wireless fidelity signal is strong enough that we can use it). In New York City, NYC Wireless, a non-profit organization, has gotten parks to agree to place routers at key spots to turn the parks into free wireless hot spots. So you can sit in Bryant Park or Union Square and check your email on your laptop. Parks and businesses and citizens can team up, too, to make a whole block or neighborhood WiFi-enabled.

bq. Then there is “municipal broadband.” Dana Spiegel, the executive director of NYC Wireless, defines municipal broadband as “merely the local government stepping in to spur the development of universal coverage and affordably priced broadband.”

bq. …

bq. In Lafayette, La., the government built its own fiber cable network and has become a wholesale broadband internet provider. It not only gets revenue from its internet customers, but it also gets savings on its telecommunications costs, because it no longer has to pay a telecom company to carry its phone and internet traffic.

bq. But more commonly, says Spiegel, “municipal broadband could be the government putting out a contract with a company after an appropriate competition, and providing guaranteed rates for the use of local, government-owned facilities in order to build a network that is run by the private company and also, in exchange for this, requiring that there be affordable access provided to all members of the community.

bq. “The most popular model is to contract out the building, operation and maintenance of the network, let a private company do all the development, but they get use of government-owned buildings for the infrastructure “like antennae].

bq. “This is not a new model this is how cable TV was developed,” Spiegel adds. “The city said, ’Okay, we’ll franchise you to do this, we’ll give you access to our rights of way, you can use under our streets, on our buildings. In exchange, you need to pay us, provide community access TV, and all sorts of other things. And these are the benefits that a local government got out of a business using their resources.’”

bq. With wireless web, the benefits would be different, but the franchise model could be the same.

bq. …

bq. Meanwhile, these large companies, fat with profit, have shown very little interest in building a better internet. The telecoms have, according to NYC Wireless’s Dana Spiegel, “been promising for 20 or 30 years, in exchange for getting subsidies and tax credits, to build broadband infrastructure. We taxpayers have given them everything they wanted and we’ve gotten nothing. They promised 15 years ago to build nationwide fiber infrastructure. They laughed all the way to the bank. They have been spending all of their money over the past five to 10 years lobbying for their agenda and not doing a whole lot to provide better, cheaper broadband. And they’ve been found to bypass low-income communities.”

bq. What we have here is a market failure. As much as some economists assure us that the free market will take care of us all and it’s true that the American free market has brought us a wealth of computer and technology innovation in this crucial area we have fallen way behind. The European and Asian countries where government and private industry have worked together, now have faster, cheaper, more accessible broadband internet.

bq. That helps poor people get jobs. It helps small businesses compete. And, yes, it helps lonely people find dates. It spreads the benefits of the internet across the population.

[1]http://newhavenadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:135562

Filed under: Interview, Muniwireless, News, NYCwireless

November 17, 2005 • 4:00 pm 0

NYCwireless Network Neutrality Broadband Challenge Gets Press

NYCwireless’ “Network Neutrality Broadband Challenge”:1 is starting to get some attention, with articles appearing in both “Muniwireless”:2 and “ISP Planet”:3.

The “ISP Planet article”:3 “Why It’s Important To Be Neutral” is particularly comprehensive, interviewing Joe Plotkin, one of our Board Members, about why his company, “Bway.net”:4, supports Network Neutrality:

bq. “I’m not advocating legislation here. We do control our own network. I’m just signing a pledge of how we’re doing business. We have a right to throw people off the network for violating our Terms of Service, but since the early days of wireless, we were one of the first to allow our DSL customers to share their connections wirelessly. We get customers because of it. I think it’s foolish of companies like Time Warner to prevent it because the more they do, the more customers I pick up.”

bq. …

bq. That’s why there’s so much concern about Whitacre’s statement. “When Whitacre says he will extract money from Google, ignoring the fact that the internet was built on an open platform, he is assulating the benefits that we as a society have reaped and that American business has reaped. The internet was successful because it was a common platform that allowed everyone to interconnect with everyone else.”

[1]http://www.nycwireless.net/tiki-index.php?page=BroadbandChallenge
[2]http://muniwireless.com/community/894
[3]http://www.isp-planet.com/politics/2005/net_neutrality.html
[4]http://www.bway.net

Filed under: Interview, Network Neutrality, NYCwireless

October 25, 2005 • 9:20 pm 0

One Economy Interview on Muni-Wireless

I was recently interviewed for a research paper being written by James Sison of the “One Economy Corporation”:1. James is researching how cities and other municipalities can prepare themselves for implementing wireless and broadband services. I spoke to James about how broadband development in this country, and especially in New York City, is both slower and more expensive than in Europe and Asia.

I also commented to him about “a previous post”:2 where I wrote about the full cost of broadband in NYC versus the cost of a computer. In the US, we pay a premium for our connectivity, and this makes no sense when you consider how much commerce takes place online:

bq. New York City (Community Nonprofit Model)

bq. Dana Spiegel of NYCwireless (“http://www.nycwireless.net”:3) runs a non-profit group that “enables the growth of free, public wireless Internet access in New York City.” The all-volunteer network manages more than 100 wi-fi hotspots located in public spaces and underserved neighborhoods. “The growth of the global economy depends on how many people you can get online,” says executive director Spiegel. “Over a three year period, people will spend an average of $1800 in New York ($50/mo x 36 mo) just to get online. You’d think that tech companies would give computers and Internet access away, just so they can get consumers to spend more money online.”

[1]http://www.one-economy.com/
[2]http://www.wirelesscommunity.info/2005/05/05/testimony-to-the-new-york-city-council’s-technology-in-government-committee/
[3]http://www.nycwireless.net

Filed under: Interview, Muniwireless, News, NYCwireless

September 1, 2005 • 6:10 pm 1

The Resident Article on Muni-Wireless for New York

The Resident (August 29, 2005 issue, page 21, no permanent link available) reporter Tim Fox interviewed me about municipal wireless and what it might mean in New York. (The original article gets my last name wrong. I’ve corrected it below.)

bq. *Express Lines: The City’s High-Tech Experts Debate How To Bring Internet Access to All New Yorkers*

bq. _By Tim Fox_

bq. From Broadway to Battery Park and beyond, Web-savvy users can now log on with ease as low-cost Internet cafés, and free wireless spaces have transformed the city into a green pasture for laptop-wielding New Yorkers.

bq. “We already have an amazing network,” says Ted Bongiovanni, a director at the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning (www.ccnmtl.columbia.edu), an educational technology department at Columbia University. “I see a very wired or wireless future for New York.”

bq. At least that’s the ideal. In truth, though broadband — dedicated highspeed Internet access — is available to many New Yorkers, the majority still has problems getting the service, according to Dana Spiegel, the executive director of NYCwireless, a New York group that promotes free wireless Internet access.

bq. “About 60 percent of New York City doesn’t make use of broadband, and 90 percent of low-income people have no broadband,” he says. “The reason for this is that most communities have only access to one or two big providers, and broadband can’t be had in New York for less than $50 a month.”

bq. Some state and local governments are making broadband a public utility akin to water, sewerage, telephone lines and electricity. The state of Georgia now wires up with Georgia Public Web, a high-speed Internet provider owned by the state’s municipalities. The government of Philadelphia plans to offer free or low-cost Wi-Fi, a popular high-speed Internet wireless service. But city experts don’t see a public utility on New York’s broadband horizon.

bq. NYCwireless is interested in improving broadband accessibility and affordability, but not making it a public utility, Spiegel says.

bq. Bongiovanni compares broadband with human rights, but says government involvement is a bad idea. “For those of us who live with broadband everyday, it is a right. But the city could end up being an investor in a technology that is antiquated.”

bq. At the same time, he says, “I don’t think that municipalities should be prohibited from providing these services if they decide that’s what’s best since what they’re doing is repackaging a public good. The industry is asking for a monopoly, and that’s just not right to provide at the expense of citizens.”

bq. There are effective models for how government could get involved, says Jason Fox, a senior director at Digital Knowledge Ventures, a unit of Columbia University. “In Singapore, it is a public service and looked at as a way to train the workforce for the future,” he says. “Singapore has been one of the leaders of broadband penetration, and people have been looking at that as a model for how governments can be proactive and effective [in promoting broadband access]. At the same time, I am wary of increased city involvement in improving broadband access and would rather see something done at the national level.”

bq. Thus, far national and local efforts have been limited. In a March 26, 2004, speech, President George W. Bush promised universal broadband access by 2007 and extended an Internet-tax ban for two years. Meanwhile, a one-year city task force created on April 14 by the City Council committee for technology in government will advise the mayor on making Internet accessible to New Yorkers. But committee chairwoman and task-force member Gale A. Brewer says the city has no plans to make broadband a public utility.

bq. Fox, however, says things might not be so bad after all. “I am not convinced that New York City has a real problem. [We have] the fourth-largest broadband connection in the country,” he says. “Sixty-six percent of computer users are connected. That tells me that it is not a major concern. There are much more pressing issues the city has to deal with — ground zero, the state of the schools, the rapidly declining subway infrastructure — to me those are all more important. Broadband would not even rate in the top 10.”

Filed under: Interview, Muniwireless, NYCwireless

August 28, 2005 • 9:34 pm 0

New York Post Interview: Cities, Providers War Over Wi-Fi as Utility

The “New York Post has an article”:1 by Sam Gustin about Wi-Fi as a public utility. I was interviewed about the work NYCwireless has done:

bq. But Executive Director of NYCwireless Dana Spiegel worries that, contrary to perceptions of a connected city, many are left out. “Only 10 percent of low-income families in New York City have access to broadband, because Time Warner and Verizon keep prices for broadband artificially high.”

bq. “Just like the grass and the trees and the benches are provided by the city,” Spiegel said, “we think that broadband Internet access should be provided as well.”

[1]http://www.nypost.com/business/51774.htm

Filed under: Community Wireless, Interview, Muniwireless, New York City, News, NYCwireless

August 15, 2005 • 11:56 pm 0

Students Work on Singapore Community Wireless

I was recently contacted by a group of students, Jacinta, Lionel, Amy and YuGai, from “Raffles Junior College”:1 in Singapore, asking about NYCwireless. They are interested in bringing public wireless networking to the people of Singapore, and I support them completely. We need more students working on Community Wireless.

Their questions, and my responses:

bq. *Since setting up of the wireless service, just exactly how popular is this service since you started it in terms of average daily users?*

bq. _NYCwireless has helped create dozens of public hotspots with partners throughout Manhattan. Some of our most popular parks, like Bryant Park, Union Square Park, City Hall Park, and the South Street Seaport see hundreds of users per day._

bq. *What are some of the feedbacks(positive and negative) you have got from the members of the public?*

bq. _The best feedback we get is that people use our hotspots. Most users don’t even contact us about their usage._

bq. _We have held a number of events at our hotspots, including educational sessions about Wi-Fi and big Arts Festivals. “Spectropolis”:2 was incredibly successful, and drew thousands of people from around New York and around the country (some even internationally)._

bq. *This is a non-profit organization. How do you pay for the cost of setting up this service? Do you have the government funding the organization?*

bq. _All of our hotspots are funded by partner organizations. For example, the hotspots that are located in Downtown Manhattan are sponsored by the Alliance for Downtown New York, a Business Improvement District company. Some of our personal hotspots are set up and run by individual volunteers. We have some funding through personal donations to NYCwireless, but no formal funding arrangements._

bq. *What are the costs of set up and maintenance like?*

bq. _A public park hotspot costs on the order of a few $1000’s. The internet is brought in via a local ISP at a cost of about $100/month. The hardware costs only about $500-$1000._

bq. *Is this service available 24 hours?*

bq. _Yes. All of our hotspots are online all day. Some even operate all year round (it gets very cold in NYC in the middle of February!)._

bq. *What are the problems the organization face in implementing the service?*

bq. _Some of the difficulties include getting access to surrounding buildings to mount the wireless hardware, and promoting the availability of the wireless service. We have a great record of accomplishment with our deployments, which rarely need any maintenance._

bq. *Following the success of this project, what are the impacts that it has on the people and economy?*

bq. _As one of the first Community Wireless Network, and one of the most visible, we believe that our work has paved the way for an entire movement of people. We have generated a significant amount of press (and still do), which has led to many people learning about Community Wireless, and the possibilities of public Wi-Fi. We also work with other organizations around the country, like Free Press and the Consumer’s Union to promote awareness and deployment of affordable wireless broadband in local communities. Some of our work in New York City has involved bringing free Wi-Fi to underprivileged and underserved residents._

bq. *What do you think of our idea of trying to provide a similar service to the working public of Singapore?*

bq. _We whole-heartedly support and encourage you to undertake this project. We would be happy to help you in any way we can. We also encourage you to make use of all of the wonderful Open Source tools created by Community Wireless Groups around the world, from CUWiN’s (Urbana, Illinois, USA) “wireless mesh software”:3, to IleSansFil’s (Montreal, Canada) “WifiDog Hotspot portal management system”:4, to our (“NYCwireless”:5) “Pebble Linux hotspot operating system”:6, to Freifunk.net’s (Berlin, Germany) “Freifunk Firmware”:7 for the Linksys WRT54G._

[1]http://www.rjc.edu.sg/newrjc
[2]http://www.spectropolis.info
[3]http://www.cuwireless.net
[4]http://www.ilesansfil.org
[5]http://www.nycwireless.net
[6]http://www.nycwireless.net/pebble
[7]http://www.freifunk.net/wiki/FreifunkFirmwareEnglish

Filed under: Community Wireless, Interview

August 14, 2005 • 3:50 am 0

InternetWeek Interview

I was recently interviewed by Christopher Heun for “an article in InternetWeek”:1 about Municipal Wireless.

bq. A lot of cities are getting involved in this specifically because they’ve been lied to and burned by the telecom companies, and they’ve thrown up their hands and said enough,” says Dana Spiegel, a software consultant and executive director of NYCwireless, a nonprofit that has helped set up dozens of free public wireless hotspots in New York City since 2001. “If a city decides for the benefit of all residents that everyone should have access to broadband services at an affordable rate and if Verizon (Communications) or SBC (Communications) is not doing that, then the city should have the right to do that.

[1]http://www.internetweek.com/168601371

Filed under: Community Wireless, Interview, Muniwireless, News

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