Portland Tribune - Cloud Cover Article

City looks for ‘cloud’ cover Wireless broadband network would make inexpensive Internet service available to everyone.

By DON HAMILTON Issue date: Fri, May 27, 2005
The Tribune

The techies call it a cloud, as in something that covers an entire city. That’s their name for a wireless broadband network that’s available everywhere, and cities all over the country are looking at it as a way to liberate the Internet from the confines of a cable. And Portland may be among the first wave of cities to get its own wireless cloud.

Sometime this summer, the city will ask private companies to bid on building a $10 million citywide wireless broadband network that offers low-cost Internet service to schools, hospitals, government, small businesses, individuals and, well, everyone under the cloud. A contract could be awarded late this year with a system in place sometime in 2006.

“It makes us a more exciting place to live and helps us compete economically,” said Commissioner Erik Sten. “If you think the future is communications and creativity, then this is a great step forward.”

The city hasn’t yet offered details. But a broad outline of the plan calls for a system owned and operated by a private company, with the city becoming a major customer, an anchor tenant, if you will, along with TriMet and Portland Public Schools. The three entities have taken part in talks about the plan over the last several years. Gresham and other local governments also are interested.

Making cheap Internet connections available everywhere, officials said, would attract new jobs, create new educational opportunities, keep small businesses competitive, generate bureaucratic cost savings in both the public and private sectors, and bring new economic opportunity to disadvantaged neighborhoods.

“All the cities are groping for how to do this,” said Daniel Aghion, executive director of the Wireless Internet Institute, a Boston-based think tank that promotes the worldwide spread of wireless service.

“There’s going to be a lot of trial and error because there’s no precedent. But cities cannot ignore the matter. They have to get involved because they’re threatened by the inner-city digital divide or economic development competition. There’s consequences and pain if you get left behind.”

Competition isn’t worried

The move would put the winning bidder in direct competition with Qwest Communications and Comcast Corp., the two major providers of high-speed Internet connections in Portland.

Almost every corner of the city already has an Internet hookup available, said Mike Dewey, executive director of the Oregon Cable Telecommunications Association. He doesn’t see a threat in a new wireless system. “If a private company wants to come in and build the infrastructure, that’s fine,” he said. “But how does it compete with the phone company, Qwest, and with Comcast? Is the private company going to pay franchise fees? They ought to.”

City ordinances require payment of standard franchise fees for private wireless operations that use the public right of way. Dewey doesn’t think Comcast or Qwest will submit a bid to build the city system: “I doubt it. We have a superior product and people will gravitate to what we’ve got.”

Portland seems ripe territory for wider Internet connections. Oregon ranks 10th in the percentage of households with computers, 67 percent, and eighth in Internet access, 61 percent, according to U.S. Census figures. But cost and availability have limited universal access.
Comcast’s home broadband service costs $40 and more a month, while a T-1 line for a startup business can cost $532 a month, said Nigel Ballard, a member of the city’s wireless planning committee.

“If there was a high-speed, citywide wireless cloud, you could get the same speed for a third of the price,” Ballard said. “It makes us competitive, technologically savvy and keeps companies here.”

Also pushing the system is Intel Corp., which hopes to sell the silicon used in the networks. Paul Butcher, Intel’s state and local marketing manager, said a wireless cloud would bring expensive technologies within financial reach of smaller companies. With a cheap Internet connection, a maintenance company, for example, could afford a global positioning system to track its trucks.

An aid to public services

Portland officials see large and small advantages. Offering cheap Internet connections could lure new businesses and create many small-scale city efficiencies.

For example, each of the city of Portland’s smart parking meters now use a small cell-phone device to report its credit card transactions, costing $22 a month each. An Internet connection could cut that cost in half, Ballard said.

Police officers and maintenance workers could file reports from the field. On-site inspections could be done automatically. Ambulances could link instantly to the hospital, fire crews to hazmat databases and police cars to full records and photos.

“It’s probably one of the most revolutionary technologies to hit the government and public spaces in a long time,” said Dianah Neff, chief information officer for the city of Philadelphia, which has been the most aggressive big city in pursuing a wireless cloud. “It will have more impact than the World Wide Web did in the 1990s. It untethers people and allows us to be more productive.”

A Wireless Internet Institute conference in Philadelphia looking at the topic earlier this month attracted representatives from 60 cities in 25 states and eight countries on four continents.

There may be a lot of interest but not many large or even medium-size cities actually have taken the plunge, although community wireless systems can be found in some small towns. Minneapolis and Tempe, Ariz., both have recently asked for bids from private companies.

Wi-Fi — and WiMAX

No single business model has emerged. Philadelphia is turning management and operational duties over to Wireless Philadelphia, a nonprofit city corporation structured similarly to the Portland Development Commission or Portland Streetcar.

Portland plans a system using Wi-Fi and the new WiMAX technology. What’s the difference? Wi-Fi — short for wireless fidelity — is effective indoors and over short distances, while WiMAX beams its signal for several miles. Signals from WiMAX antennas then would feed to smaller Wi-Fi transmitters linked to computers.

Local governments are suited to host such a system, said Marshal Runkel, an aide to Sten who has been helping shepherd the city’s initiative, because they can offer many sites for the antennas, including utility poles, maintenance sheds and parks. Portland’s plan probably will include free hot zones — parks and other public places — but most users would subscribe. “This is where the public wants government to go, thinking about ways to promote business with more efficient services at lower cost,” Runkel said.