From the April 4, 2003 print edition

Portland: the most 'unwired' city in U.S.?

Aliza Earnshaw Business Journal staff writer

As part of Intel Corp.'s wireless-awareness campaign backing the introduction of its Centrino wireless technology, the company held a press event in downtown Portland last month to demonstrate that our fair city is indeed the most "unwired" in America.

Intel presented research by Bert Sperling demonstrating that on a per-capita basis, Portland has the most "hot spots," or access points for connecting wirelessly to the internet, than any other city in the United States.

Sperling, who lives in Southeast Portland, is founder and president of Sperling's Best Places, which produces the research for Money Magazine's annual "Best Places to Live" feature and other ranked lists that appear in a variety of magazines.

Though Portland certainly has its fair share of Starbucks coffee shops, with their subscription-based wireless internet access, it's not actually the number of pay-for-access hot spots from T-Mobile and other providers that earned Portland its star status on the wireless map.

Thanks, Personal Telco

Rather, it is Portland's own all-volunteer wireless-geek group, Personal Telco Project, that has given us our wireless cool.

Personal Telco Project has so far put up 140 "nodes"--the word favored for wireless access points that one does not need to pay to use--in the greater Portland area. About 80 of these are still active in a variety of locations, including pubs, restaurants, shops and the homes of people who are happy to share their broadband with anyone who's curious enough to buy a wireless card, slot it into a laptop and tune in.

Sperling and his research team looked at several factors in determining just how "unwired" U.S. cities are: the number of hot spots, or commercial Wi-Fi access points; the number of nodes, or public access points; the degree of internet access available via cell phone companies' networks; and finally, how many people in the city actually use the internet regularly.

Portland came out on top on a per-capita basis, with 130 active public access nodes, or 7.4 per 100,000 people. "This is nearly five times the number of the next highest place--Austin, Texas, with 1.5 nodes per 100,000 of population," said Sperling.

And the folks of PTP can take much of the credit for that.

"It is primarily because of Personal Telco that Portland ranks where it does," said Sperling. Portland ranked in the top 15 cities for paid-access hot spots.

There are many in Portland who would like to see still more public Wi-Fi internet access.

One idea now under discussion in city and business circles is a city-built free wireless network that would run on Portland's Integrated Regional Network Enterprise network, also known as the IRNE.

And again, perhaps not surprisingly, the germ of this idea came from PTP. One of the group's more active members, Nigel Ballard, proposed a free wireless network for Portland in a short document that began making the rounds of techies and government types early this year.

The city's efforts

The city of Portland started building the fiber-optic IRNE network in 2001, and will complete the second phase of it this summer.

The motivation for building the IRNE was twofold, according to Nancy Jesuale, outgoing director of communications and networking for the city of Portland: to save telecom costs for the city and other governments and public agencies who use the network, and to help boost economic development by creating a low-cost fiber optic network.

Though it's not easy to articulate just how the IRNE can play a role in economic development, it's very clear to a number of Portlanders that free wireless internet access through downtown and beyond would be a huge benefit to the region.

A sought-after service

"When companies look to locate here, that's on their list of qualifications," said Jesuale. "Good schools, good cultural opportunities, and wireless internet."

Creative service companies and technology companies in particular value a city's "wiredness," or in this case, un-wiredness, very highly, said Jesuale. "And those are the businesses that Portland has said it is trying to attract."

Rich Bader, president of EasyStreet Online Services, is convinced that a public-access wireless network could play a significant role in persuading new companies to come here, and local companies to stay here past their infancy.

"Wireless networks are considered part of a robust economic environment," he said.

Bader pointed to studies that suggest that wireless networks are becoming an important ingredient in economic development.

Other cities have certainly decided that wireless is an important amenity: a new network built by Long Beach, Calif., went live earlier this year, and Adelaide, Australia, is in the process of building one.

Certainly, "wireless is hot," said Bader. "The bright, innovative folks that will make Oregon's economy go are attracted to services like this.

"A wireless network would signal that Portland is cool, that the government is hip enough to think this is a great idea," he said. "It suggests that the city is supportive of innovative businesses, and is taking an active step to encourage knowledge-based businesses."