From jim at media.mit.edu Mon May 16 01:37:33 2005 From: jim at media.mit.edu (Jim Youll) Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 01:37:33 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) In-Reply-To: <20050516003522.iz5vy8y34exc80o0@webmail.media.mit.edu> References: <20050516003522.iz5vy8y34exc80o0@webmail.media.mit.edu> Message-ID: I have hard time getting behind initiatives like this because with rare exception: - they aren't designed to be self-sustaining and tend to operate with an infinite subsidy - they're deployed with too little forethought and too much excitement - they seem to forget that people don't use laptops in parks, and won't, and maybe oughtn't, for a number of reasons - there's nothing magical about wireless connections that "bridges the digital divide" - they're pushed by self-interested vendors chasing a permanent money-stream I would sure like to know what BTS Partners stands to gain from this event, considering that their business is the design and deployment of networks. Another of the sponsors is Boston WIreless Advocacy Group (BostonWAG) whose founder is Michael Oh, who can himself be often heard promoting the Newbury Open Net as a means of advertising his computer services business, Tech Superpowers. Confusingly, BostonWAG seems to be advocating simple open access points [10] like the access point in my living room, something that's very different from the promise to paint an entire 3D city with high-speed data to solve decades of division between poor and rich people. BostonWAG also has stake a claim to a bigger mission of collecting wireless best and worst practices, but so far the website only shows about 10 reviews of coffee shops offering wireless Internet access... that's not quite the same thing, and a real understanding of best and worst practices may require empirical data that simply do not exist at this early point. The survey, with its open-ended questions asked of people with no background in the subject, provokes lots of magical fantasy thinking on the part of respondents who aren't hamstrung by the physics of radio signals or sunlight, or that Boston is cold or rainy 9 of 12 months, or that miss the point of the exercise entirely, for example: [2] "I could go anywhere outside in the nice weather months to get work (social & professional) done on my laptop."[3][6][7] "I could have used my laptop while in Vermont" [8] "I would like to be able to use my laptop in different rooms of my home" "Being able to bring my own laptop into work and not having the to find an extra cord around." [9] "Just having information available at my fingertips would be helpful." [5] This stuff will make for a great showing at the public meeting, but it's not rooted in reality. I note that several respondents to the survey seem to anticipate that this service will indeed provide "free wireless" but the promotional materials don't really suggest that will (or could) be the case, The Philadelphia experiment that seems to have made Boston officials so envious, will _not_ provide free wireless access to the entire city of Philadelphia, but will instead create a nonprofit ISP launched with subsidies and friendly loans, with operating costs covered by subscription fees just like those paid to cable, DSL or dialup providers already. In that way the project is not unlike a nonprofit (still in operation today) ISP that I helped found, to cover a large rural area that was entirely unserved by commercial ISPs back in the 1990s. But in that case there were no alternatives and our work created a market that allowed other ISPs to come in with services we did not offer. [4] We dealt with some of the same magical thinking in the WCNet [4] project, but still managed to build something sustainable, over a large area, without paying fees to outside consulting firms to sort it out for us. Anyone on msgs who'd care to either debate this or help me put together an explanation of how this project could rapidly and permanently consume the scarce resources that might otherwise actually "bridge the digital divide" is of course welcome to e-mail me. Councillor Tobin has been talking about this for a long time, then got distracted. Now Boston is perhaps playing "keep up with Philadelphia" before anyone even knows whether that experiment will be a success or a failure. apologies for typos or errors of fact or omission. it's late. REFERENCES ----------- [1] http://www.phila.gov/wireless/pdfs/Wireless-Phila-Business-Plan-040305 -1245pm.pdf [2] http://wifi.btspartners.com/Userresults.php [3] http://www.cityrating.com/cityweather.asp?City=Boston [4] http://wcnet.org/ [5] Connection != Information at fingertips [6] http://ksgaccman.harvard.edu/hotc/DisplayIssue.asp?id=32 and noting that crime rates are higher in the warm summer months when it's vaguely feasible to use a computer outdoors [7] http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/15504819/ gotomsg/15505187.cfm [8] http://maps.google.com/maps? q=boston,+ma+to+montpelier,+vermont&spn=4.078125,7.553058&hl=en [9] http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/sec/2004/0315sec1.html [10] http://www.bostonwag.org/mission/index.html On May 16, 2005, at 12:35 AM, tpryor at media.mit.edu wrote: > ...forwarded from multiple sources... > >> If you're interested in attending the Boston Wi-Fi >> Summit that City Councillor Tobin's Office is hosting >> with the City of Boston, The Museum of Science and The >> Boston Foundation ... read on for more info about how >> to RSVP in case you haven't seen the info on >> BostonWAG's website yet. >> WI-FI SURVEY: >> At the summit, BTS Partners will present a study >> conducted to determine existing wireless technology in >> the city of Boston and potential models to increase >> Wi-Fi capability in the future. The survey for >> individuals will remain available after the 5/19 WiFi >> Summit to gather additional individual input and >> include the report. If you have not filled out the >> survey, please do! While the survey is geared towards >> Boston residents, if you reside outside Boston you can >> enter your town in the "other" field on question #2. >> (For example: Cambridge, Brookline, etc.) >> To participate in the survey for individuals visit >> http://wifi.btspartners.com >> Please share this information with your friends and >> colleagues in the Boston area who are interested in a >> discussion about wireless in Boston. >> WHAT: >> Boston Wi-Fi Summit >> RSVP ONLINE: >> http://www.bostonwag.org/summit.html >> RSVP BY PHONE: >> If you prefer to RSVP by phone, City Councillor >> Tobin's office is taking RSVPs at 617-635-4220. >> WHY: >> BTS Partners will present a study conducted to >> determine existing wireless technology in the city of >> Boston and potential models to increase Wi-Fi >> capability in the future. The event is the outgrowth >> of an order filed in August 2004 by City Councillor >> Tobin, who represents West Roxbury and Jamaica Plain. >> Councillor Tobin?s order called for hearings to >> discuss how the City of Boston could use wireless >> technology to bridge the ?digital divide? and provide >> the infrastructure to support residents? growing need >> for access to new technology. >> WHEN: >> Thursday, May 19, 2005 >> 8:45 AM - 1:00 PM >> WHERE: >> Museum of Science >> Science Park >> Boston, MA 02114 >> 617.723.250 >> http://www.mos.org >> AGENDA: >> I. Registration/Coffee & Refreshments >> II. Welcome Remarks >> III. BTS Presentation >> IV. Panel 1: Questions and comments regarding the BTS >> analysis from a community perspective >> V. Panel 2: Discussion of possible business models >> that could work in Boston >> VI. Next Steps >> VII. Audience Questions & Comments > > _______________________________________________ > msgs mailing list > msgs at media.mit.edu > http://listserv.media.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/msgs > From sronan at panix.com Tue May 17 00:37:40 2005 From: sronan at panix.com (Stephen Ronan) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 00:37:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) Message-ID: On Mon, 16 May 2005, Jim Youll wrote: > I have hard time getting behind initiatives like this because with rare > exception: I'm not sure I know just what you mean by "initiatives like this". Thus far about all we we have to show for the Boston initiative is a draft analysis (not a plan for the future) to be released this week and an opportunity on May 19th to discuss it. Perhaps next there'll subsequently be a Mayoral task force to develop a plan. But that's not clear at this point. But maybe you mean initiatives like putting up streetlights and keeping them lit, putting in water mains and delivering fresh H2O to the citizens (including free fountains in the park), paving streets and keeping them more or less clear of snow, attaching a couple dozen WiFi mesh nodes per sq mile to lamposts and connecting a few of them as gateways to the Internet, maintaining a sewer system, or establishing libraries. > - they aren't designed to be self-sustaining and tend to operate with > an infinite subsidy Take streetlights and libraries... how would you prefer they be funded? > - they're deployed with too little forethought and too much excitement Well, I'm guessing you weren't up late last night reading "Fast & Easy: The Future of WiFi & Beyond In the City of Los Angeles" just recently issued by the Mayor's WiFi & Beyond Executive Advisory Panel. That panel, which included representatives of SBC, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner, managed to attain a majority consensus (with some dissenting by the cablecos) for such excitement as this: "Personalized Broadband Services: Even though the provision of access to broadband services at municipal facilities is a necessary first step in the achievement of our proposed mission, within the space of five years we believe most people would not want to travel to a central lcation to gain access to broadband networks. Fortunately, the inherently lower cost structure of [WiFi and Beyond] WAB technologies makes it possible for the City to begin to address this issue in ways that were outside its capacity in the past. While some aspects of the Digital Divide such as devices, service performance, and education are beyond the scope of this panel's work, in the time span of five years, we believe the City should also have a plan that will address this issue of convenienet access to the Net for all its residents, businesses and visitors that takes into account both public and private activities. It can help address these other factors by empowering community based non-profit stakeholders and leveraging grant opportunities to undertake such a role." Well, if that's not more than enough excitement for one day, one can read the first paragraph under Financing, which makes a bold call for development of a "Decision-Making Calculus". Or, if you prefer, there's the citywide vaporware WAN being discussed once in a while since way back when in Cleveland. > - they seem to forget that people don't use laptops in > parks, and won't, and maybe oughtn't, for a number of reasons I'm somewhat sympathetic to that perspective. But perhaps the folks pictured here have better backlit screens or eyesight than I do: http://www.bryantpark.org/amenities/wireless.php I have little interest in combining laptops and direct sunlight. But when I get off the bus in NYC in the dark of the evening, Bryant Park seems to me like it could be a pretty good place to catch up on email now that the EasyInternet joint around 42nd street has closed. > - there's nothing magical about wireless connections that "bridges the > digital divide" My first home was a housing development that the last page of this week's NY Times Magazine reminds me consisted, together with its neighbor development, of "110 apartment buildings, from 13 to 15 stories each, housing more than 25,000 people on the equivalent of 27 Manhattan blocks." If there's another way to bring ubiquitous broadband accessibility to folks living there as inexpensively as WiFi could do it, that other system also to my mind has some magical qualities to it. But it sure would take quite a while to run MS Windows Antispyware (Beta) and then AntiVir consecutively on all the machines there after upgrading a bunch of them from Win 98 to Win 98 service pack whatever and then from IE 5 to IE 6 so that the Linksys adapters could install since they need at least IE 5.5 and the newer Cisco ones wouldn't install at all with earlier Windows than 2K. Which may be the kind of issue you're quite correctly alluding to. > - they're pushed by self-interested vendors chasing a permanent > money-stream > > I would sure like to know what BTS Partners stands to gain from this event, > considering that their business is the design and deployment of networks. Not to mention that they list Verizon as a prime partner and Verizon has not been neutral to municipal WiFi efforts. FWIW my initial brief impression is that the chap who seems to be leading their effort on the study has a genuine enthusiasm for serving the public well with an independent study and that Verizon wasn't providing intimate early counsel on its development. And BTS is not charged with developing a plan, but rather with describing current capacities and delineating some potential models (such as those that have been consistently outlined already elsewhere). > Another of the sponsors is Boston WIreless Advocacy Group (BostonWAG) whose > founder is Michael Oh, who can himself be often heard promoting the Newbury > Open Net as a means of advertising his computer services business, Tech > Superpowers. Michael is one of three founders, the others don't have any related business connection that I know of. I've attended a bunch of the group's meetings; it seems thus far to operate by consensus among those of us who show up, and it's clear that Michael's interest in the potential of WiFi stretches way beyond his business interests. I suspect you and he would agree a lot with each other, probably more than with me about the need for a deliberate carefully planned approach. >Confusingly, BostonWAG seems to be advocating simple open access > points [10] like the access point in my living room, something that's very > different from the promise to paint an entire 3D city with high-speed data to > solve decades of division between poor and rich people. BostonWAG also has > stake a claim to a bigger mission of collecting wireless best and worst > practices, but so far the website only shows about 10 reviews of coffee shops > offering wireless Internet access... that's not quite the same thing, and a > real understanding of best and worst practices may require empirical data > that simply do not exist at this early point. It's a small new organization with a budget of something in the order of zero dollars and as many cents. And it has done quite a bit already all things considered, including holding a very lively preliminary forum at the Boston Public Library a few weeks back. I'd encourage you to come to its next Meetup. And drop by and say hello at my office if you're ever near Broadway and Lee. Or perhaps I'll see you at the Summit bright and early Thursday morning at the Museum of Science (they'll have free WiFi, fortunately, which'll make it easier for some of us to attend). G'night, [...] - Steve From jim at media.mit.edu Tue May 17 01:11:38 2005 From: jim at media.mit.edu (Jim Youll) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 01:11:38 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55e44c01c0e371f4ca8c618c3c546e42@media.mit.edu> I believe you're dramatically over-simplifying both the problem and the "solution" and forgetting the maintenance overhead that then has to be dealt with as well, in a city that historically has had troubles taking care of the street lights without the fancy attachment. I don't see your basis in decreeing that this sort of thing should be publicly funded or any rationale for why that's necessary. People can get Internet access right now for $10 a month. My brother, in Cleveland, with a couple of uni degrees, good job and a nice house, is definitely not cut off from the world with his puny dialup connection, so I'm not sure why it's so essential to attempt to deliver broadband through brick walls and around corners to people who apparently, by your description, don't even know why they want a computer right now... much less to parks where it's sometimes not even safe to carry an iPod, or why such a thing would even be useful. it's yet another instance of technologies and money interests pushing technology as a solution to a social problem that they don't understand. The last go-round, that project in Boston, deteriorated into make-work for the promoters. I fail to see why this one would be any different. On May 17, 2005, at 12:37 AM, Stephen Ronan wrote: > > On Mon, 16 May 2005, Jim Youll wrote: > >> I have hard time getting behind initiatives like this because with >> rare exception: > > I'm not sure I know just what you mean by "initiatives like this". > Thus far about all we we have to show for the Boston initiative is a > draft analysis (not a plan for the future) to be released this week > and an opportunity on May 19th to discuss it. > > Perhaps next there'll subsequently be a Mayoral task force to develop > a plan. But that's not clear at this point. > > But maybe you mean initiatives like putting up streetlights and > keeping them lit, putting in water mains and delivering fresh H2O to > the citizens (including free fountains in the park), paving streets > and keeping them more or less clear of snow, attaching a couple dozen > WiFi mesh nodes per sq mile to lamposts and connecting a few of them > as gateways to the Internet, maintaining a sewer system, or > establishing libraries. > >> - they aren't designed to be self-sustaining and tend to operate >> with an infinite subsidy > > Take streetlights and libraries... how would you prefer they be funded? > >> - they're deployed with too little forethought and too much >> excitement > > Well, I'm guessing you weren't up late last night reading "Fast & > Easy: The Future of WiFi & Beyond In the City of Los Angeles" just > recently issued by the Mayor's WiFi & Beyond Executive Advisory Panel. > That panel, which included representatives of SBC, Verizon, Comcast, > and Time Warner, managed to attain a majority consensus (with some > dissenting by the cablecos) for such excitement as this: > > "Personalized Broadband Services: Even though the provision of access > to broadband services at municipal facilities is a necessary first > step in the achievement of our proposed mission, within the space of > five years we believe most people would not want to travel to a > central lcation to gain access to broadband networks. Fortunately, the > inherently lower cost structure of [WiFi and Beyond] WAB technologies > makes it possible for the City to begin to address this issue in ways > that were outside its capacity in the past. While some aspects of > the Digital Divide such as devices, service performance, and education > are beyond the scope of this panel's work, in the time span of five > years, we believe the City should also have a plan that will address > this issue of convenienet access to the Net for all its residents, > businesses and visitors that takes into account both public and > private activities. It can help address these other factors by > empowering community based non-profit stakeholders and leveraging > grant opportunities to undertake such a role." > > Well, if that's not more than enough excitement for one day, one can > read the first paragraph under Financing, which makes a bold call for > development of a "Decision-Making Calculus". > > Or, if you prefer, there's the citywide vaporware WAN being discussed > once in a while since way back when in Cleveland. > > >> - they seem to forget that people don't use laptops in parks, and >> won't, and maybe oughtn't, for a number of reasons > > > I'm somewhat sympathetic to that perspective. But perhaps the folks > pictured here have better backlit screens or eyesight than I do: > http://www.bryantpark.org/amenities/wireless.php > I have little interest in combining laptops and direct sunlight. But > when I get off the bus in NYC in the dark of the evening, Bryant Park > seems to me like it could be a pretty good place to catch up on email > now that the EasyInternet joint around 42nd street has closed. > >> - there's nothing magical about wireless connections that "bridges >> the digital divide" > > My first home was a housing development that the last page of this > week's NY Times Magazine reminds me consisted, together with its > neighbor development, of "110 apartment buildings, from 13 to 15 > stories each, housing more than 25,000 people on the equivalent of 27 > Manhattan blocks." If there's another way to bring ubiquitous > broadband accessibility to folks living there as inexpensively as WiFi > could do it, that other system also to my mind has some magical > qualities to it. But it sure would take quite a while to run MS > Windows Antispyware (Beta) and then AntiVir consecutively on all the > machines there after upgrading a bunch of them from Win 98 to Win 98 > service pack whatever and then from IE 5 to IE 6 so that the Linksys > adapters could install since they need at least IE 5.5 and the newer > Cisco ones wouldn't install at all with earlier Windows than 2K. Which > may be the kind of issue you're quite correctly alluding to. > >> - they're pushed by self-interested vendors chasing a permanent >> money-stream >> I would sure like to know what BTS Partners stands to gain from this >> event, considering that their business is the design and deployment >> of networks. > > Not to mention that they list Verizon as a prime partner and Verizon > has not been neutral to municipal WiFi efforts. FWIW my initial brief > impression is that the chap who seems to be leading their effort on > the study has a genuine enthusiasm for serving the public well with an > independent study and that Verizon wasn't providing intimate early > counsel on its development. And BTS is > not charged with developing a plan, but rather with describing current > capacities and delineating some potential models (such as those that > have been consistently outlined already elsewhere). > >> Another of the sponsors is Boston WIreless Advocacy Group (BostonWAG) >> whose founder is Michael Oh, who can himself be often heard promoting >> the Newbury Open Net as a means of advertising his computer services >> business, Tech Superpowers. > > Michael is one of three founders, the others don't have any related > business connection that I know of. I've attended a bunch of the > group's meetings; it seems thus far to operate by consensus among > those of us who show up, and it's clear that Michael's interest in the > potential of WiFi stretches way beyond his business interests. I > suspect you and he would agree a lot with each other, probably more > than with me about the need for a deliberate carefully planned > approach. > >> Confusingly, BostonWAG seems to be advocating simple open access >> points [10] like the access point in my living room, something that's >> very different from the promise to paint an entire 3D city with >> high-speed data to solve decades of division between poor and rich >> people. BostonWAG also has stake a claim to a bigger mission of >> collecting wireless best and worst practices, but so far the website >> only shows about 10 reviews of coffee shops offering wireless >> Internet access... that's not quite the same thing, and a real >> understanding of best and worst practices may require empirical data >> that simply do not exist at this early point. > > It's a small new organization with a budget of something in the order > of zero dollars and as many cents. And it has done quite a bit already > all things considered, including holding a very lively preliminary > forum at the Boston Public Library a few weeks back. I'd encourage you > to come to its next Meetup. And drop by and say hello at my office if > you're ever near Broadway and Lee. Or perhaps I'll see you at the > Summit bright and early Thursday morning at the Museum of Science > (they'll have free WiFi, fortunately, which'll make it easier for some > of us to attend). > > G'night, > > [...] > > - Steve > _______________________________________________ > Rooftops mailing list > Rooftops at mit.edu > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/rooftops > From jim at media.mit.edu Tue May 17 01:24:53 2005 From: jim at media.mit.edu (Jim Youll) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 01:24:53 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you want to bring WiFi to people, make it legal and safe to share connections, and then give people the ability to make money from running their own tiny neighborhood micro-sized access points... this takes away the profit motives for the noisiest players in these activities, and thus hasn't been considered in any of these citywide corporate-sponsored projects to my knowledge as no ?ber-designer organization is required to build the network, since it's already there. The ridiculous top-down approach they're toying with tries to custom-fit expensive (yes, expensive) wireless signals into every nook and cranny such that the rats in the subways could chatter away all night on tiny little voip phones... I also don't see the point of the survey. Surely the "enthusiasm" will be used to bolster the cause, but what useful information could come from a small, self-selected audience unfamiliar with what it will take to roll out something of the scope that is being discussed? Of course everyone wants WiFi! Important question -- why have so many companies - with plenty of money - gone into this space and failed? Don't say "salaries". Even community projects need marketing, support and staffing, especially on the scale of what has just been proposed. This looks like another expensive experiment carried out for the benefit of technology lovers and technology companies at the expense of the disadvantage populations it's supposed to serve. On May 17, 2005, at 12:37 AM, Stephen Ronan wrote: > My first home was a housing development that the last page of this > week's NY Times Magazine reminds me consisted, together with its > neighbor development, of "110 apartment buildings, from 13 to 15 > stories each, housing more than 25,000 people on the equivalent of 27 > Manhattan blocks." If there's another way to bring ubiquitous > broadband accessibility to folks living there as inexpensively as WiFi > could do it, that other system also to my mind has some magical > qualities to it. But it sure would take quite a while to run MS > Windows Antispyware (Beta) and then AntiVir consecutively on all the > machines there after upgrading a bunch of them from Win 98 to Win 98 > service pack whatever and then from IE 5 to IE 6 so that the Linksys > adapters could install since they need at least IE 5.5 and the newer > Cisco ones wouldn't install at all with earlier Windows than 2K. Which > may be the kind of issue you're quite correctly alluding to. From spiegel at media.mit.edu Tue May 17 17:16:42 2005 From: spiegel at media.mit.edu (spiegel@media.mit.edu) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 17:16:42 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <428A5F3A.70102@media.mit.edu> Hey Jim, I need to jump in here to correct a few things. As a non-profit in NYC (and someone who has a good deal of respect for your opinion), I must say that much of what you claim in your original email is groundless, and worse, some of it falls victim to the same illogical conclusions that the industry funded "independent" reports put out by the New Millenium Research Council (NMRC). I don't have time to go into detail, but a few things: 1) Muni Wi-Fi or Broadband isn't for every community, but each community should have the freedom to decide if it makes sense for them. 2) Quite a lot of New Yorkers (and non-New Yorkers) make use of our hotspots in the parks of Manhattan. In fact, in aggregate, many thousands of people each month use the 11 parks that are "lit up" through the work of NYCwireless and others. We see lots of use even in the winter (though it is much less than in the warmer months). Also, public space exists indoors as well as out in NYC, as it does in Boston. So your "people don't use the outdoor hotspots" claim is in fact verifiably groundless. :) 3) There is an enormous amount of forethough that goes into muni-networks. Philly, for example, spent 2 years researching this. Other cities convene panels of stakeholders and produce reports on exactly what should happen (see SF and LA, among others). 4) It is true that Wi-Fi alone doesn't bridge the Digital Divide, but it is a part of the solution. See: http://www.nycwireless.net/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=11 for a partial discussion of this. 5) All of the muni-networks that are either in planning or in operation DO NOT have infinite subsidies. In fact, many operate on limited government loans that are paid back in full and then some. See: http://www.freepress.net/docs/mb_telco_lies.pdf and http://www.freepress.net/docs/mb_white_paper.pdf 6) These initiatives are often pushed by communities and constituencies. Though there are private companies that are pushing muni-networks, these companies base their statements in fact, not the fiction that is put forth by those companies (telco's in particular) that come down against them. 7) NewburyOpen.net is a great company. Mike Oh (I know him personally) is a great friend of social service, and though he justifies his business involvement with this work as gaining visibility for Tech Superpowers, I'm sure he would do this even if there were no business justification at all. He believes (as we all do) in the power of technology to help overcome social divide issues. So, I would recommend you take a look at some of the linked documents. And since I know you are actually interested in helping the community, I would recommend you get involved and ensure that what Boston decides to do with its muni-wi-fi actually will aid in some of the social divide issues above. :) Dana Spiegel Executive Director NYCwireless dana at nycwireless.net www.nycwireless.net +1 917 402 0422 Jim Youll wrote: > If you want to bring WiFi to people, make it legal and safe to share > connections, and then give people the ability to make money from > running their own tiny neighborhood micro-sized access points... this > takes away the profit motives for the noisiest players in these > activities, and thus hasn't been considered in any of these citywide > corporate-sponsored projects to my knowledge as no ?ber-designer > organization is required to build the network, since it's already there. > > The ridiculous top-down approach they're toying with tries to > custom-fit expensive (yes, expensive) wireless signals into every nook > and cranny such that the rats in the subways could chatter away all > night on tiny little voip phones... I also don't see the point of the > survey. Surely the "enthusiasm" will be used to bolster the cause, but > what useful information could come from a small, self-selected > audience unfamiliar with what it will take to roll out something of > the scope that is being discussed? Of course everyone wants WiFi! > > Important question -- why have so many companies - with plenty of > money - gone into this space and failed? Don't say "salaries". Even > community projects need marketing, support and staffing, especially on > the scale of what has just been proposed. > > This looks like another expensive experiment carried out for the > benefit of technology lovers and technology companies at the expense > of the disadvantage populations it's supposed to serve. > > > On May 17, 2005, at 12:37 AM, Stephen Ronan wrote: > >> My first home was a housing development that the last page of this >> week's NY Times Magazine reminds me consisted, together with its >> neighbor development, of "110 apartment buildings, from 13 to 15 >> stories each, housing more than 25,000 people on the equivalent of 27 >> Manhattan blocks." If there's another way to bring ubiquitous >> broadband accessibility to folks living there as inexpensively as >> WiFi could do it, that other system also to my mind has some magical >> qualities to it. But it sure would take quite a while to run MS >> Windows Antispyware (Beta) and then AntiVir consecutively on all the >> machines there after upgrading a bunch of them from Win 98 to Win 98 >> service pack whatever and then from IE 5 to IE 6 so that the Linksys >> adapters could install since they need at least IE 5.5 and the newer >> Cisco ones wouldn't install at all with earlier Windows than 2K. >> Which may be the kind of issue you're quite correctly alluding to. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Rooftops mailing list > Rooftops at mit.edu > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/rooftops From sronan at panix.com Tue May 17 19:12:56 2005 From: sronan at panix.com (Stephen Ronan) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 19:12:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) Message-ID: On Tue, 17 May 2005, Jim Youll wrote: > If you want to bring WiFi to people, make it legal and safe to share > connections, and then give people the ability to make money from running > their own tiny neighborhood micro-sized access points... this takes away the > profit motives for the noisiest players in these activities, and thus hasn't > been considered in any of these citywide corporate-sponsored projects to my > knowledge as no über-designer organization is required to build the network, > since it's already there. We discussed that at the community forum hosted by bostonwag at the Boston Public Library. I asked the BTS Partners chap whether he thought the city might, for example, condition its approval of Comcast and Verizon (as it tries to also roll out one-way video services) franchise agreements on their revising their terms of service to permit users to share Internet bandwidth with their neighbors. The former CIO of Somerville interjected that cities would not be permitted by the FCC to negotiate that as part of a franchise agreement, since the Commission claims relevant jurisdiction in regard to telecommunications and information services. Of course Speakeasy.net already makes it legal and safe to share connections, and encouraging the kind of market you suggest makes sense to me, but given Speakeasy's own very small market share, it's not likely to be a large part of any solution any time soon, given a laissez faire municipal approach. In Philadelphia, they're aiming to rapidly aggregate demand for a service, run by a nonprofit corporation, that will enable entry of multiple ISPs, such as Speakeasy, that could facilitate the kind of market you favor. > The ridiculous top-down approach they're toying with tries to custom-fit > expensive (yes, expensive) wireless signals into every nook and cranny such > that the rats in the subways could chatter away all night on tiny little voip > phones... I also don't see the point of the survey. Surely the "enthusiasm" > will be used to bolster the cause, but what useful information could come > from a small, self-selected audience unfamiliar with what it will take to > roll out something of the scope that is being discussed? Of course everyone > wants WiFi! I agree with you that the survey will provide little if any useful, new and unexpected information. > Important question -- why have so many companies - with plenty of money - > gone into this space and failed? Don't say "salaries". Even community > projects need marketing, support and staffing, especially on the scale of > what has just been proposed. I'm unclear how the space you're referring to is defined. Tropos is a company that comes to mind that I'd consider to be in this space... putting mesh WiFi nodes throughout residential and business districts of cities using city owned infrastructure like streetlights... and it seems too early to know how they'll fare. And I see Google is subsidizing some neighborhood connections and still staying afloat. What companies are you thinking of? Metricom? Cometa? > This looks like another expensive experiment carried out for the benefit of > technology lovers and technology companies at the expense of the disadvantage > populations it's supposed to serve. I think it may be useful to differentiate between say the Minneapolis approach and the Philadelphia approach, the latter being more apparently focused on ensuring relative benefit for economically disadvantaged individuals. I think the results of one approach of municipally-supported WiFi might well increase, and another reduce, relative disadvantage. What may happen in Boston remains very much up in the air. - Steve From jim at media.mit.edu Wed May 18 03:45:47 2005 From: jim at media.mit.edu (Jim Youll) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 03:45:47 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <428A5F3A.70102@media.mit.edu> References: <428A5F3A.70102@media.mit.edu> Message-ID: Followup please to the rooftops at mit list. Subscriptions: http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/rooftops rather than msgs. Rooftops is member-only, but I have set it to permit non-subscribers to post w/ moderator intervention. But please join and discuss! It's a quiet place. and i apologise for just-one-more. Dana - I've tried not "project" too far into the new and mostly-shapeless Boston project. But the limited information that has been released provides some basis for concern. This was a sincere attempt to interpolate what's known about this project with knowledge of similar projects I've seen or participated in. I hope some people will pursue these concerns at the upcoming meeting, and with the look-alike projects that will surely follow, here and elsewhere. The consultants and go-ahead crew don't care what I or any noisy person thinks. But it is appropriate to call for justification of experiments that could hurt people or waste scarce resources. The consultants running the project are network engineers, hired to solve a social problem that was diagnosed by a city councilman who prescribed a technological cure. That isn't an encouraging start. Councilor Tobin is surely well-intentioned. But this initiative, on ice since last fall, reappears now in part due to the pressures of civic pride, an impatient press and eager technoliterati to "keep up with Philly", also not grand reasons to move ahead right now. Discussion at the first public meeting should have been: "what is broken in our world and can this new technology make it less broken?" But things appear to have passed that point already, as proponents are already talking "solutions." The real scaling problems here are not defined by mesh density, signal propagation and routing, but by the forgotten problems of helping a crowd of newbies thrive in the difficult Internet environment where spam, viruses, and frauds are found at every turn. What sorts of new problems will be created in the lives of users? How will this project protect them? Assigning responsibility might keep the project rational. But who can assign responsibility? Who will assume it? Small offline example: Boston parks aren't all safe places right now. Should people sit with expensive laptops in parks that were terrorized by shootings only last summer, or is this just a project for well-off areas in disguise? At Thursday's public meeting: - 2/3 of the agenda will discuss money and technology Properly: - 0/3 of the agenda should cover technology. - 3/3 should try to figure out whether problems exist that a wireless project could improve. If the technology just works, then it has no place at a general meeting. But there are no functioning precedents at this early stage of the art of wireless, so it seems at best risky and at worst dangerous to run a live experiment on real people. The electric parade of whizzo could-be's may raise the hopes of disadvantaged communities without their having a grounded understanding of the realistic benefits, if any, and leaving them hurt later if the project doesn't deliver. We all want amazing wonderful things! But baiting an unsuspecting audience, for the sake of a project, is cruel. The online survey, for example, found a self-selected crowd of the hopeful who revealed their wishes for the extraordinary and improbable. Finally, if the project is to be sustainable for years (hard stuff, yet it must be sustained if it is even begun), then it must originate from within the communities, at whatever pace they can safely and confortably bear, fast or slow, big scale or small. I don't see that in the DNA of the proposed Boston project, considering that it's already assumed a top-down we-know-what-you-need approach. Philadelphia definitely doesn't have it. I can't put it there. Maybe someone reading this can. see you on the roof. On May 17, 2005, at 5:16 PM, spiegel at media.mit.edu wrote: > Hey Jim, > > I need to jump in here to correct a few things. As a non-profit in NYC > (and someone who has a good deal of respect for your opinion), I must > say that much of what you claim in your original email is groundless, > and worse, some of it falls victim to the same illogical conclusions > that the industry funded "independent" reports put out by the New > Millenium Research Council (NMRC). > > I don't have time to go into detail, but a few things: > > 1) Muni Wi-Fi or Broadband isn't for every community, but each > community should have the freedom to decide if it makes sense for > them. > > 2) Quite a lot of New Yorkers (and non-New Yorkers) make use of our > hotspots in the parks of Manhattan. In fact, in aggregate, many > thousands of people each month use the 11 parks that are "lit up" > through the work of NYCwireless and others. We see lots of use even in > the winter (though it is much less than in the warmer months). Also, > public space exists indoors as well as out in NYC, as it does in > Boston. So your "people don't use the outdoor hotspots" claim is in > fact verifiably groundless. :) > > 3) There is an enormous amount of forethough that goes into > muni-networks. Philly, for example, spent 2 years researching this. > Other cities convene panels of stakeholders and produce reports on > exactly what should happen (see SF and LA, among others). > > 4) It is true that Wi-Fi alone doesn't bridge the Digital Divide, but > it is a part of the solution. See: > http://www.nycwireless.net/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=11 for a > partial discussion of this. > > 5) All of the muni-networks that are either in planning or in > operation DO NOT have infinite subsidies. In fact, many operate on > limited government loans that are paid back in full and then some. > See: http://www.freepress.net/docs/mb_telco_lies.pdf and > http://www.freepress.net/docs/mb_white_paper.pdf > > 6) These initiatives are often pushed by communities and > constituencies. Though there are private companies that are pushing > muni-networks, these companies base their statements in fact, not the > fiction that is put forth by those companies (telco's in particular) > that come down against them. > > 7) NewburyOpen.net is a great company. Mike Oh (I know him personally) > is a great friend of social service, and though he justifies his > business involvement with this work as gaining visibility for Tech > Superpowers, I'm sure he would do this even if there were no business > justification at all. He believes (as we all do) in the power of > technology to help overcome social divide issues. > > So, I would recommend you take a look at some of the linked documents. > And since I know you are actually interested in helping the community, > I would recommend you get involved and ensure that what Boston decides > to do with its muni-wi-fi actually will aid in some of the social > divide issues above. :) > > Dana Spiegel > Executive Director > NYCwireless > dana at nycwireless.net > www.nycwireless.net > +1 917 402 0422 From jim at media.mit.edu Wed May 18 04:12:14 2005 From: jim at media.mit.edu (Jim Youll) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 04:12:14 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On May 17, 2005, at 7:12 PM, Stephen Ronan wrote: > On Tue, 17 May 2005, Jim Youll wrote: > >> If you want to bring WiFi to people, make it legal and safe to share >> connections, and then give people the ability to make money from >> running their own tiny neighborhood micro-sized access points... this >> takes away the profit motives for the noisiest players in these >> activities, and thus hasn't been considered in any of these citywide >> corporate-sponsored projects to my knowledge as no ?ber-designer >> organization is required to build the network, since it's already >> there. > > We discussed that at the community forum hosted by bostonwag at the > Boston Public Library. I asked the BTS Partners chap whether he > thought the city might, for example, condition its approval of Comcast > and Verizon (as it tries to also roll out one-way video services) > franchise agreements on their revising their terms of service to > permit users to share Internet bandwidth with their neighbors. The > former CIO of Somerville interjected that cities would not be > permitted by the FCC to negotiate that as part of a franchise > agreement, since the Commission claims relevant jurisdiction in regard > to telecommunications and information services. They can't demand it but the city any organizer of a large-scale project is in an excellent position to negotiate proper agreements to make the process work however they want it to. Even if Speakeasy weren't in the market, for maybe $100 to $200 a month anyone can buy a circuit that allows some sort of small grade sharing or resale. This project doesn't need to change laws if it can simply negotiate what it will be buying in bulk. But cities are lousy negotiators. They oughn't be in business territory. Approaches are available that don't need anything more than a willing counterparty. Speakeasy's already set the bar. Others could be brought around. > Of course Speakeasy.net already makes it legal and safe to share > connections, and encouraging the kind of market you suggest makes > sense to me, but given Speakeasy's own very small market share, it's > not likely to be a large part of any solution any time soon, given a > laissez faire municipal approach. In Philadelphia, they're aiming to > rapidly aggregate demand for a service, run by a nonprofit > corporation, that will enable entry of multiple ISPs, such as > Speakeasy, that could facilitate the kind of market you favor. The financial justification for a massive Philly-style build-out should look something like this: [100% == 100% of whatever area the project wants to cover. For Philadelphia, this is 100% of the city core] 1) the userbase is diffuse, requiring 100% build-out to reach it all 2a) if 100% build-out can be achieved, then and ONLY then can the system be self-sustaining because the distance between users prevents success of anything smaller than 100% 2b) OR some users are so isolated that a government grant is the only way to reach them. Commercial vendors don't go there 3) commercial startups failed because they could not build-out 100% at day 1; no sustaining level exists below the 100% level I've not seen any evidence that this is the case. The above was in fact similar to the case for the nonprofit ISP I helped create in the 1990s, but things were different at that time and in that place. That pattern is not found here. > I agree with you that the survey will provide little if any useful, > new and unexpected information. But I will not be surprised to see it used as a favorite prop to demonstrate the public's "need" for this project. >> Important question -- why have so many companies - with plenty of >> money - gone into this space and failed? Don't say "salaries". Even >> community projects need marketing, support and staffing, especially >> on the scale of what has just been proposed. > > I'm unclear how the space you're referring to is defined. Tropos is a > company that comes to mind that I'd consider to be in this space... > putting mesh WiFi nodes throughout residential and business districts > of cities using city owned infrastructure like streetlights... and it > seems too early to know how they'll fare. And I see Google is > subsidizing some neighborhood connections and still staying afloat. > What companies are you thinking of? Metricom? Cometa? If this is so do-able, why don't we have it already? If it's too early to know how they'll fare, why in the world is a municipality about to take on risk? Google doesn't count unless they're going to do the same nationwide or unless you're saying that corporate philanthropy will carry this project. Metricom? deadish, no? The company Simson was involved with here in Boston, many others... there's a lot of litter out there. The for-profit wireless resellers using cheap AP's and DSL are having trouble finding the right price point BECAUSE there's already so much free wireless floating around in the air. Why another wireless ISP now? >> This looks like another expensive experiment carried out for the >> benefit of technology lovers and technology companies at the expense >> of the disadvantage populations it's supposed to serve. > > I think it may be useful to differentiate between say the Minneapolis > approach and the Philadelphia approach, the latter being more > apparently focused on ensuring relative benefit for economically > disadvantaged individuals. I think the results of one approach of > municipally-supported WiFi might well increase, and another reduce, > relative disadvantage. What may happen in Boston remains very much up > in the air. Well it's all in the air, no? that's the concern :) Pardoning the pun but there seems to be something proceeding, and the agenda for the first meeting sounds more like a mid-course meeting than a starting point. I read into the Boston materials that a driving motivation (judging from the invitees who will "respond" to the presentations on thursday) is to somehow rebalance some "advantage/disadvantage" by providing high-speed streaming bits to people who don't have them now. But that's not very substantive. This thing seems to be happening right now because the whiny press and "embarrassed" pols are trying to keep up with the neighbors and then back-filling with ready-made reasons like "the disadvantaged" without concrete meaning. From rhodes at bradleyrhodes.com Wed May 18 03:50:57 2005 From: rhodes at bradleyrhodes.com (Bradley Rhodes) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 00:50:57 -0700 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <428A5F3A.70102@media.mit.edu> References: <428A5F3A.70102@media.mit.edu> Message-ID: <10DEEF6F-7CF9-44A0-9709-CA3A61F6FE62@bradleyrhodes.com> [msgs dropped] > Jim Youll wrote: > > >> If you want to bring WiFi to people, make it legal and safe to >> share connections, and then give people the ability to make money >> from running their own tiny neighborhood micro-sized access points... Speakeasy already offers such services to end-users, including (IIRC) billing software. I don't see this as a replacement for MUNI or for free (as in beer) access in public areas, but figured I'd mention it. Brad From sronan at panix.com Thu May 19 23:17:29 2005 From: sronan at panix.com (Stephen Ronan) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 23:17:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: video clips from the summit: http://www.votejohntobin.com/ - Steve From spiegel at media.mit.edu Fri May 20 10:31:23 2005 From: spiegel at media.mit.edu (spiegel@media.mit.edu) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 10:31:23 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <428DF4BB.3040800@media.mit.edu> I just watched some of the presentations here, and I have to say, I'm quite disappointed. There certainly were smart people there, but the focus of the summit, was on Wi-Fi only, which was WRONG. This isn't about a technology issue, and no one stood up there and said that. This is a community issue. Its about helping those on the wrong side of the Digital Divide learn and help themselves, and giving them both the trainingh and the resources to do it. What disappoints me most, frankly, is that no-one from the Media Lab was there to talk about all of the things we know. Where was someone to talk about all of the Outreach research projects that we do, like the Computer Clubhouse, Silver Stringers, and the Creating Community Connections projects? Where were the people to talk about smart radios, and how they will do away with many of the interference issues we are experiencing now? Where was someone to talk about Nicholas' $100 computer, which can do as much good in Boston as it can in India and Africa? This is the stuff WE, as a community, know better than anyone else in Boston. And WE, as a community of socially conscious researchers, MUST have a voice. I'm willing to help (though I'm in NYC), since this is one of the perspectives I bring to New York through NYCwireless. Dana Spiegel Executive Director NYCwireless dana at nycwireless.net www.nycwireless.net +1 917 402 0422 Stephen Ronan wrote: > video clips from the summit: > http://www.votejohntobin.com/ > - Steve > _______________________________________________ > Rooftops mailing list > Rooftops at mit.edu > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/rooftops From sronan at panix.com Fri May 20 15:20:49 2005 From: sronan at panix.com (Stephen Ronan) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 15:20:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <428DF4BB.3040800@media.mit.edu> References: <428DF4BB.3040800@media.mit.edu> Message-ID: Without gainsaying your basic point, Dana, there was more of that covered than you may realize from the clips up there now. > What disappoints me most, frankly, is that no-one from the Media Lab was > there to talk about all of the things we know. All three panelists on the second panel were MIT grads and one, Richard O'Bryant got his doctorate at the Media Lab. > Where was someone to talk about all of the Outreach research > projects that we do, like the Computer Clubhouse, Silver > Stringers, and the Creating Community Connections projects? O'Bryant was co-lead investigator on the Creating Community Connections project: http://llk.media.mit.edu/projects/summaries/c3.shtml I had thought he might talk more about that project. He alluded to it but perhaps assumed it was fairly well known by now in the community and didn't go into detail. He did raise the central point that for many people being exposed to the Internet via a free setup excites sufficient interest to fuel a subsequent willingness to pay. Nyvia Colon of Madison Park covered some of the territory you're referring to re: community perspective on the first panel. But that didn't get included among the currently available set of clips. Check out her contribution on the first panel when the Museum of Science puts the whole event on their Web site at mos.org this weekend. As you may know the event took place at the Museum maybe a hundred feet or so from the flagship Computer Clubhouse, http://www.computerclubhouse.org/ the whole program being based at the Museum. But the several speakers from the Museum had their limited time filled with our things to say. > Where were the people to talk about smart radios, and how they > will do away with many of the interference issues we are > experiencing now? You'll find that Jock Gill spoke to that when you see his full contributions. > Where was someone to talk about Nicholas' $100 computer, which > can do as much good in Boston as it can in India and Africa? For a while there it looked like we might have a panel with some folk like Neil Gershenfeld of the Center for Bits and Atoms who might have talked about using fab labs http://fab.cba.mit.edu/ to create $25 VNC clients and Sanjit Biswas to talk about MIT Roofnet: http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/roofnet/ but the available time and timing of the event turned out not to be ideal for that. Perhaps for a next event... I'd hope so. > This is the stuff WE, as a community, know better than anyone else in Boston. > And WE, as a community of socially conscious researchers, MUST have a voice. > > I'm willing to help (though I'm in NYC), since this is one of the > perspectives I bring to New York through NYCwireless. Would love to have you come visit with us and provide input into both some specific WiFi community network projects as well as the overall direction. And by the way there's lots of need for volunteers to help local community wifi projects move further forward. If anyone has time to offer, please let me know. Anyone feel confident with chimney mounts? There's a Roxbury church with an omni in the steeple that isn't giving enough coverage... would be better to have it out next to the chimney. And I know of 7 families in Lower Roxbury/South End hoping for help getting WiFi installed tomorrow. - Steve From sronan at panix.com Fri May 20 15:47:38 2005 From: sronan at panix.com (Stephen Ronan) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 15:47:38 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: References: <428DF4BB.3040800@media.mit.edu> Message-ID: >> Where were the people to talk about smart radios, and how they will do away >> with many of the interference issues we are experiencing now? > > You'll find that Jock Gill spoke to that when you see his full contributions. And I think some others (maybe Doug Schremp, Vinit Nijhawa, Russell Newman) also alluded to that issue. I'm having trouble remembering who focused on it most. -s From tschroed at zweknu.org Fri May 20 11:34:16 2005 From: tschroed at zweknu.org (Trevor Schroeder) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 11:34:16 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <428DF4BB.3040800@media.mit.edu> References: <428DF4BB.3040800@media.mit.edu> Message-ID: <20050520153415.GA1890@zweknu.org> On Fri, May 20, 2005 at 10:31:23AM -0400, spiegel at media.mit.edu wrote: > This isn't about a technology issue, and no one stood up there and said > that. This is a community issue. Its about helping those on the wrong > side of the Digital Divide learn and help themselves, and giving them > both the trainingh and the resources to do it. I was there on behalf of the Computer Clubhouse and had a couple of folks from the Boys & Girls Clubs there to think about it from a community perspective. I agree, it was very disappointing. The focus was pretty heavily on the technical issues and a *little* bit on the economics. Some thoughts I had: - Providing network access is only one part of the question. Access to computers is obviously just important. - Panelists kept talking over and over about how we need to have symmetric channels to allow people to be content creators and publishers as if that were the sole barrier. For these folks the desire to create and disseminate is so strong that they don't realize that others need motivation to understand *why* or that they even *can* create stuff. People find $300 for game consoles, that money could just as easily buy a computer, but why choose one over the other? If people are given access without support in using it to its fullest potential, it will simply become a carrier for Xbox Live or Launch.com. The trend towards commercialization/consumerization of Internet access has been towards asymmetric delivery because most people aren't content creators. We need to change this, but just giving a symmetric channel doesn't do it. - The panelists had their Wi-Fi blinders on. Some made nods towards UWB and software radio, but ultimately the focus was far too narrow. The beauty of Wi-Fi is its low equipment and marginal costs. If you just need a small standalone network or to add wireless to an existing wired-infrastructure, it's CHEAP. That's great. It makes it very easy for existing institutions (the so-called MUSHes) and technical individuals to provide free or possibly low-cost access should they desire. (There's the classic study that shows billing makes it way more expensive than just giving it away.) But when talking about universal coverage, it's a completely different question. Wi-Fi is not the dominant wireless standard, cellular is. There are data cellular offerings already and they have far better coverage than any unified wi-fi network today. If you build a unified wi-fi network, you have all the problems that cellular companies have: wide-area infrastructure, towers, redundancy, billing, etc. Basically, the cost of the AP is only a small piece of the pie and that becomes the only difference between you and a cellular operator when looking at a full city-scale wi-fi deployment on purpose-built infrastructure. If you want full-scale wireless coverage, it seems best to work with the players who already have the infrastructure to support it. Do you think you can go head-to-head against Verizon? All they have to do is add access points to their existing stations and they can even offer wi-fi. Those carriers are geared up to offer coverage if it can be shown to be economically feasible on the scales at which they operate. Given this, the best suggestion I heard was that the City should focus on facilitating individual or private efforts, giving access to utility poles, facilitating interoperation, etc. and stay out of the ISP biz themselves. This will allow wi-fi to flourish where it works best: at the low-cost margins where large-scale providers have a hard time turning a profit. This doesn't resolve the "digital divide" (I hate that term) question, but perhaps we need targeted solutions for that. The nice (?) thing is that low-income populations tend to be pretty geographically defined, so if the City finds that those areas are falling behind in wireless access (as they are already), it could provide service (either directly or through a grant or contract to another provider) to those specific areas without getting into the mess that is full city-scale service provision. The Boston Main Streets wireless initiative is actually a good example of this. If these providers want to link up and charge through a common billing system, that's fine, the City just needs to stay out of the way. So why didn't I say this all yesterday? Frankly, I was too disappointed. It seemed pretty clear that the folks up on the stage had very different agenda and I felt like what I had to say didn't even figure into their vision. So let them have it, but I think they're far wide of mark. From sronan at panix.com Sat May 21 19:08:40 2005 From: sronan at panix.com (Stephen Ronan) Date: Sat, 21 May 2005 19:08:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) Message-ID: On Fri, 20 May 2005, Trevor Schroeder wrote: > - Providing network access is only one part of the question. Access to > computers is obviously just important. Have you had a chance yet to read the Philadelphia business plan and RFP? If so, what did you think of those? They include provisions for donation of 10,000 computers in low-income communities, each with 8-10 hours of training. But my sense was that that might not happen until a few years hence and presumably only would happen to that degree if other parts of the business plan were successful in meeting goals for subscribership. > > - Panelists kept talking over and over about how we need to have > symmetric channels to allow people to be content creators and > publishers as if that were the sole barrier. For these folks the > desire to create and disseminate is so strong that they don't realize > that others need motivation to understand *why* or that they even > *can* create stuff. People find $300 for game consoles, that money > could just as easily buy a computer, but why choose one over the > other? If people are given access without support in using it to its > fullest potential, it will simply become a carrier for Xbox Live or > Launch.com. The trend towards commercialization/consumerization of > Internet access has been towards asymmetric delivery because most > people aren't content creators. We need to change this, but just > giving a symmetric channel doesn't do it. I'm pretty sure that folks like Richard O'Bryant, Russell Newman, Michael Oh, Jock Gill, and Nyvia Colon are well aware of these issues. At the same time, most or all of them realize that it will be very difficult to overbuild the highly asymmetric Comcast and Verizon FIOS networks with higher capacity symmetric wired infrastructure and the deficiencies of those networks' orientation towards one-way provision of video services needs to be highlighted in policy discussions now, at a time when the FCC as a whole, and many legislators, have paid the issue little constructive attention. It may otherwise be the city's position that currying favor with Verizon in order to hasten in Boston an asymmetric Fios deployment with highly restrictive terms of service forbidding WiFi sharing or personal servers, is the city's best strategy to benefit citizens' access to broadband at a time when the company is cherry-picking other higher income communities. Perhaps that would indeed make sense, but a strong argument might be made that the city would instead be better off in the long run by developing its own content neutral, open architecture fiber infrastructure, or one under local nonprofit control, that could be leased to ISPs in a manner akin to the Philadelphia wireless plan. > - The panelists had their Wi-Fi blinders on. Some made nods towards UWB > and software radio, but ultimately the focus was far too narrow. The > beauty of Wi-Fi is its low equipment and marginal costs. If you just > need a small standalone network or to add wireless to an existing > wired-infrastructure, it's CHEAP. That's great. It makes it very > easy for existing institutions (the so-called MUSHes) and technical > individuals to provide free or possibly low-cost access should they > desire. (There's the classic study that shows billing makes it way > more expensive than just giving it away.) > > But when talking about universal coverage, it's a completely different > question. Wi-Fi is not the dominant wireless standard, cellular is. > There are data cellular offerings already and they have far better > coverage than any unified wi-fi network today. If you build a unified > wi-fi network, you have all the problems that cellular companies have: > wide-area infrastructure, towers, redundancy, billing, etc. > Basically, the cost of the AP is only a small piece of the pie and > that becomes the only difference between you and a cellular operator > when looking at a full city-scale wi-fi deployment on purpose-built > infrastructure. In addition to the Philly RFP, you may find it of interest to look at Tropos Networks (http://www.tropos.com/) if you haven't yet and rather than think in terms of a cellular type architecture consider the viability of the Tropos style mesh architecture relying mostly on access points connected to lightposts. The plan in Philly is to use 18 to 30 of them per square mile and Philly covers about 135 square miles while Boston is only 50 square miles. So that'd only be about 1250 needed to reach pretty much every building in Boston. And for connecting some of the nodes to the backbone, perhaps using pre-WiMax equipment, one wouldn't need cell towers what with the scattering of tall buildings that pop out here and there in the Boston skyline. They did a one-square mile test in Philly and at least portions of pretty much all buildings (i.e., the first couple of floors in the front) could get a fast reliable signal using their test client equipment, which was a Hawking USB client adapter. From the parts of buildings that were well-covered one might presumably create a small local mesh or bridge onto the interior electrical power lines to extend to other parts of the building. And that's with 802.11b or g. It seems that 802.11n will dramatically increase range. And pre-n equipment is already on the market... http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1668063,00.asp I'd be curious to know how soon a company like Tropos would move to its use. Shouldn't be very long, should it...? though a little longer than may have been hoped: http://www.techworld.com/mobility/news/index.cfm?NewsID=3697 > If you want full-scale wireless coverage, it seems best to work with > the players who already have the infrastructure to support it. Do you > think you can go head-to-head against Verizon? All they have to do is > add access points to their existing stations and they can even offer > wi-fi. Those carriers are geared up to offer coverage if it can be > shown to be economically feasible on the scales at which they operate. When one thinks of streetlights, it's the city that is the player that has the infrastructure. And Verizon seems more than a little worried about trying to go head to head with cities. Of late, Verizon's been heading in the other direction re: WiFi. A year ago they announced plans to put in 1000 hot spots at NYC phone booths to be available for use of their DSL subscribers. But by Novemeber they cut the number in half and a month later it appeared that the plan might be further cut. And there's this: http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2005/02/09/rollout_by_verizon_triggers_concerns/ > Given this, the best suggestion I heard was that the City should focus > on facilitating individual or private efforts, giving access to > utility poles, facilitating interoperation, etc. and stay out of the > ISP biz themselves. The happenstance development of Boston's street infrastructure (based on the meandering of cattle?) creates considerable charm, I think, as a pedestrian. But I can understand how a truck driver might be less enthused. And doubt there's advantage to an uncoordinated approach in regard to WiFi. Is it better to try to facilitate, or instead to mandate, interoperability if the city's infrastructure is to be a vital part of the system? And aren't there good efficiencies derived from aggregating demand throughout the city in regard to matters such as cost of backhaul? And won't all for profit operators tend to ignore lower income areas except those that are highly concentrated in population? What, if anything, might you find disagreeable, Trevor, in regard to the Philadelphia plan, which has a single nonprofit oversee a coordinated citywide buildout with a central goal of equitable access, and then leases access to perhaps half a dozen ISPs with the city neither being directly responsible for implementing the buildout nor for the ongoing ISP services? > This will allow wi-fi to flourish where it works > best: at the low-cost margins where large-scale providers have a hard > time turning a profit. This doesn't resolve the "digital divide" (I > hate that term) question, but perhaps we need targeted solutions for > that. The nice (?) thing is that low-income populations tend to be > pretty geographically defined, so if the City finds that those areas > are falling behind in wireless access (as they are already), it could > provide service (either directly or through a grant or contract to > another provider) to those specific areas without getting into the > mess that is full city-scale service provision. The Boston Main > Streets wireless initiative is actually a good example of this. > > If these providers want to link up and charge through a common billing > system, that's fine, the City just needs to stay out of the way. > > So why didn't I say this all yesterday? Frankly, I was too disappointed. > It seemed pretty clear that the folks up on the stage had very different > agenda and I felt like what I had to say didn't even figure into their > vision. So let them have it, but I think they're far wide of mark. I'm not that clear yet how the agenda of the folks on stage differed from yours. In fact the BRA chap seemed to explicitly favor a relatively laissez faire approach by the city, with it perhaps facilitating this and that here and there but offering little leadership and direction. And most other speakers seemed optimisitc about a collaborative process involving hospitals, universities, and private sector, with lightly facilitated organic growth... They seemed to lean more toward the Cleveland http://www.muniwireless.com/archives/000209.html than toward the Philadelphia http://www.phila.gov/wireless approach. But that article about Cleveland was written a year ago. And nothing much has happened since then in Cleveland in regard to WiFi, or so I'm told by a knowledgeable Clevelander who describes much of the plans for collaboration there to be "vaporware". And, by contrast, it seems that in Philadelphia there's substantial and steady progress thanks to major initiative and direction from the City. - Steve From thad at cc.gatech.edu Sun May 22 09:05:38 2005 From: thad at cc.gatech.edu (Thad E. Starner) Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 09:05:38 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <428DF4BB.3040800@media.mit.edu> (spiegel@media.mit.edu) References: <428DF4BB.3040800@media.mit.edu> Message-ID: <200505221305.j4MD5cqU018874@tokyo.cc.gatech.edu> Folks- >Where was someone to talk about Nicholas' $100 computer, which can do Speaking of this, I'm writing a short article for IEEE Pervasive Computing on the subject of how to create inexpensive networked computers for the rest of the planet (~5 billion people or so). I'm thinking of comparing NN's $100 laptop to the Simputer to mobile phones. One of my points will be that mobile phones will soon be the equivalent of full featured desktops and the interfaces will be sufficient for the task. If anyone has suggestions, can point me to the Simputer guys, or can help me provide background info for the points below, I'd appreciate it! 1) Keyboards: (My) recent studies show that mini-QWERTY (thumb keyboards) and the Twiddler allow the average user to achieve desktop typing rates (~50-60wpm sustained on average). 2) Displays: Head-up displays or laser projection displays will give mobile phones the resolution they need to use full desktop environments. 3) Networking: Do store and forward networking, leveraging wireless communities - much like USENET did with 56kbaud lines in the 70s-80s. 4) Batteries: These phones can use little enough power to be wind-up. Big problem here is mechanical wear and battery lifetime 5) Interface: This is hard. MS Windows, Linux/X, etc. don't cut it. They assume too much tacit knowledge. But this area can have rapid development. 6) $: Need to create a "business model" where owning one of these computers is profitable, so that the owner keeps it working. Much like the micro-loans program in Bangladesh for mobile phones. Thad From mikeb at cc.gatech.edu Mon May 23 09:19:26 2005 From: mikeb at cc.gatech.edu (Michael Best) Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 09:19:26 -0400 Subject: [Rooftops] Re: [msgs] City of Boston WI-FI "summit" Thurs @ Museum of Science (9am - 1pm) (fwd) In-Reply-To: <200505221305.j4MD5cqU018874@tokyo.cc.gatech.edu> References: <428DF4BB.3040800@media.mit.edu> <200505221305.j4MD5cqU018874@tokyo.cc.gatech.edu> Message-ID: <4291D85E.7040908@cc.gatech.edu> Hey Thad, Regarding #1 below - have you written up these results? I would love to see your study results. Thanks, --MB. Thad E. Starner wrote: > Folks- > > >>Where was someone to talk about Nicholas' $100 computer, which can do > > > Speaking of this, I'm writing a short article for IEEE Pervasive > Computing on the subject of how to create inexpensive networked > computers for the rest of the planet (~5 billion people or so). > > I'm thinking of comparing NN's $100 laptop to the Simputer to > mobile phones. One of my points will be that mobile phones > will soon be the equivalent of full featured desktops and the > interfaces will be sufficient for the task. If anyone has > suggestions, can point me to the Simputer guys, or can help me provide > background info for the points below, I'd appreciate it! > > 1) Keyboards: (My) recent studies show that mini-QWERTY (thumb > keyboards) and the Twiddler allow the average user to achieve desktop > typing rates (~50-60wpm sustained on average). > > 2) Displays: Head-up displays or laser projection displays will give > mobile phones the resolution they need to use full desktop > environments. > > 3) Networking: Do store and forward networking, leveraging wireless > communities - much like USENET did with 56kbaud lines in the 70s-80s. > > 4) Batteries: These phones can use little enough power to be wind-up. > Big problem here is mechanical wear and battery lifetime > > 5) Interface: This is hard. MS Windows, Linux/X, etc. don't cut it. > They assume too much tacit knowledge. But this area can have rapid > development. > > 6) $: Need to create a "business model" where owning one of these > computers is profitable, so that the owner keeps it working. Much > like the micro-loans program in Bangladesh for mobile phones. > > Thad > _______________________________________________ > Rooftops mailing list > Rooftops at mit.edu > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/rooftops From sronan at panix.com Wed May 25 21:20:49 2005 From: sronan at panix.com (Stephen Ronan) Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 21:20:49 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Rooftops] Video stream of WiFi Summit In-Reply-To: <428A5F3A.70102@media.mit.edu> References: <428A5F3A.70102@media.mit.edu> Message-ID: The full video stream of the WiFi Summit is available now: http://cumulus.mos.org:554/ramgen/archives/wifi/wifi.rm?usehostname Perhaps someone might pass this on to the msgs at media.mit.edu list. I don't think I can post to that list. - Steve