Internet access, once a luxury, is quickly becoming a key livability issue for New York. Other cities have tried to implement free wifi access to all of their citizens, but with varying success. The Municipal Art Society will present a panel of experts who will explore some of the models employed, as well as the challenges in making wifi access a priority.

Together, they will address the following questions:

• What would expanded wireless access enable New Yorkers to do better, more efficiently, and more cost effectively?
• What is the difference between muni-wireless (as was done in Philadelphia and other cities) and public space wireless (as offered in NYC and in Montreal)?
• What are the roles of the city government, BIDs and other organizations, and private/non-profit developers in providing free wifi?

There will also be a Keynote given by Rachel Sterne, NYC’s Chief Digital Officer, and an Introduction given by one of our favorite people, City Councilmember Gale Brewer.

Be sure to register at http://wirelesscitymasnyc.eventbrite.com/

Testimony to the New York City Council Committees on Parks and Recreation and Technology

Members and Staff of the New York City Council, I would like to thank you for inviting me here today to provide my testimony and provide what I hope is useful guidance on the issue of Public Space Wi-Fi Hotspots and the Parks Wi-Fi Deployment plan developed by DoITT in the course of negotiating NYC cable franchise agreements.

First, a brief introduction (since we as an organization have testified a number of times for the NY City Council and many know us): NYCwireless is a non-profit whose mission is to bring free Wi-Fi Internet access to New York City parks, public spaces, and other public gathering places, as well as under-served places like affordable housing residences. We have been doing this work since 2000. We were the organization that brought free Wi-Fi to New York City, starting with a locally supported hotspot in Tomkins Square Park in 2001, the world-recognized Bryant Park hotspot in 2003, and the Downtown Alliance’s groundbreaking network of hotspots in 2005. We have been doing this work longer than any other organization and have seen more success than anyone else in New York City in our efforts. We continue to create new hotspots around New York City, and innovate the technology that enables the creation of these hotspots that bring significant recognition to us and New York.

We are a special type of IT organization: we provide services and support for planning, installing, and maintaining a hotspot or hotzone, but we rely on our partners to supply funding and local outreach and marketing, as well as support for accessing local infrastructure for places to install hotspot equipment. Working with us, a local organization can retain ownership and responsibility for a hotspot, but can take advantage of our experience and best practices, and can depend upon our technical and procedural expertise to create a successful hotspot quickly and cheaply. We are also a local small business that is independently funded by our work, and represent exactly the sort of local organization the City should be supporting in these hard economic times.

We have long been a supporter of the intent of the Parks Department, and more recently DoITT, to bring more free Wi-Fi hotspots to city parks, but for the benefit of the citizens of this city, we have also been outspoken critics of the policies and practices of the Parks Department and DoITT in their effort. I have brought copies of some blog articles and past testimony with me today, so I won’t detail the many issues we have spoken about in the past, but concentrate on the specific issues at hand today.

Related NYCwireless Filings and Blog Posts

• http://www.nycwireless.net/2009/06/response-to-city-wireless-internet-access-for-new-york-city-parks-and-other-open-spaces-doitt-rfi/
• http://www.nycwireless.net/2007/12/testimony-to-the-new-york-city-broadband-advisory-committee/
• http://www.nycwireless.net/2009/05/our-take-nyc-rfi-on-city-wireless-internet-access-for-new-york-city-parks-and-other-open-spaces/
• http://www.nycwireless.net/2010/09/details-on-nyc-cable-franchise-agreements-with-subscriber-wi-fi-details/
• http://www.nycwireless.net/2010/09/ny-cable-firms-provide-limited-park-wi-fi-as-part-of-franchise-renewal/

Park Hotspot Best Practices

We have discovered, in over a decade of work, that successful and sustainable hotspots require a four things:

1. A motivated local organization that sees the creation of a hotspot or hotzone as a valuable economic and cultural development for its community,
2. Promotion and marketing to inform local communities of the hotspot’s existence and value,
3. Well executed and maintained hardware and network installation, and
4. Appropriate management systems and software to protect the users of the hotspots and the organizations that build them

NYCwireless provides components (3) and (4), while our partner organizations (BIDs, “friends of” organizations, local businesses and developers, etc.) provide components (1) and (1).

Indeed, we have found that (1) may in fact be the most important component of a successful and sustainable hotspot; That all currently operating hotspots are projects of local BIDs and other organizations, while the City’s Park hotspots saw only a 3-year life and are now no longer operating should be proof enough of this. An inability of the City Parks Department and DoITT to recognizing these facts has long been a deficiency of these organization’s efforts.

I’m not going to speak today about the value of such hotspots to a local community, as this fact has been established and documented extensively in prior NYCwireless testimony to the City Council and to the NYC Broadband Advisory Committee, some of which I have brought with me should the Council wish to review. I am also not going to speak today about what we believe is the appropriate and sustainable model for NYC to support the creation of many more public space Free Wi-Fi Hotspots. This model is clearly documented in NYCwireless’ RFI response to DoITT’s “City Wireless Internet Access for New York City Parks and Other Open Spaces,” copies of which I have also brought with me for your review.

How Hotspots Work

At this point, it is useful to briefly describe how public hotspots work, and the hardware and software that comprise them.

First, in terms of process and definition: a “public hotspot” is any multi-user Wi-Fi network whose purpose is to legitimately invite passers-by or visitors to connect in order to gain access (likely after some authentication process) to the internet. Starbucks’ Wi-Fi networks in their stores (operated by AT&T Wireless) are public hotspots, Boingo (a company) Wi-Fi networks in airport terminals and hotels are hotspots, and NYCwireless Wi-Fi in Parks are hotspots. Business networks, though they may utilize Wi-Fi technology, are not hotspots, nor are personal home networks that are unprotected by security measures and encryption.

“Free public hotspots” are any “public hotspots” that are further made available to all users at no cost to that user for any period of time. Recently, Starbucks’ hotspots were made into Free public hotspots, allowing store visitors to connect to the internet for free for unlimited amounts of time. NYCwireless Hotspots, DTA hotspots, and the hotspot at Bryant Park are “Free public hotspots” since a visitor to any of our park networks never pays any money for any period of usage. Wi-Fi service on Virgin America and other airlines is not a Free public hotspot since AirCell (the company that operates the networks) requires a payment of $10-$13 per flight for usage. The proposed DoITT franchise agreement park hotspots are also not Free public hotspot in any sense since they require payment of a daily fee for usage beyond three 10 minute sessions per month (more on this later).

To use a hotspot, a user must select the network name in their computer’s Wi-Fi network selection panel. In the case of NYCwireless hotspots, the user selects the network named “www.nycwireless.net”. Once connected to the hotspot, the user must browse to any web page in order to bring up the login screen. The login screen (also known as the hotspot splash page or hotspot home page) is customized for each hotspot, and contains information about the hotspot creator (in NYCwireless’ case the BID or other local organization partner) and any sponsor logos and messages. A user can create a new account, read the Acceptable Usage Policy, or just log into the hotspot with their email address and password. Once logged in, the user is then redirected to another customized hotspot page with more information about the hotspot. At this point, the user is logged into the hotspot, and can access the internet as he or she sees fit. All hotspots work in exactly the same way.

NYCwireless uses server-based software to operate and maintain all of its hotspots. This software handles user login, the presentation of all customized hotspot home pages, and captures all usage information, including real-time information about who is logged in, how much bandwidth each user is using, and how many visitors each hotspot receives.

NYCwireless Hotspot Network Usage Statistics

The NYCwireless network of hotspots has over 40,000 registered users, over 15,000 of which have logged in over the past year. The most active months of the year are in the summer (understandably, since we mostly operate outdoor hotspots), however winter usage is about 40% of the summer peak, thus showing that, except for the most inclement weather, free public hotspots are popular year round.

Our most active hotspots are Madison Square Park (11,143 visitors in 2010), Jackson Square Park (3,041 visitors in 2010), Wagner Park (2,191 visitors in 2010) and Brooklyn Bridge Park (983 visitors in 2010). They visit at all hours of the day with a peak in the early afternoon, though late evenings see about 50% of the usage as during the day, and early morning about 20% of early afternoon peak.

Compare this to our affordable housing hotspot network, built with partner Community Access. The hotspots in 9 Community Access managed buildings saw almost 40,000 visits over the past couple of years and have over 7,000 registered users (some of these are duplicates that are in use by the same person). These hotspots, which are available throughout the buildings, get 24/7/365 use, and are now peaking at over 1,700 connections per month. These networks also saw about 17TB worth of information transferred over the past year, which shows enormous usage.

DoITT’s Cable Franchise Agreements

I do wish to make a few brief comments about the current DoITT plan to use cable franchise agreements to bring “Wi-Fi” to City Parks. These comments are discussed more extensively in our blog, and I have brought copies of a few appropriate articles with me as well.

On a positive note, DoITT’s attempt to use the negotiation of cable franchise agreements to do something beneficial for park Wi-Fi is laudable. I was very happy to see that they are at least paying a little attention to the extensively researched and assembled (though unreleased) Diamond Consulting “Broadband Needs Assessment Study.”

However, the positive aspects of DoITT’s plan end there.

First, the plan does not establish any form of “Free Public Wi-Fi”, an amenity of New York City parks since NYCwireless began our work, and one replicated by the Parks Department and many other organizations around the City. Free Public Wi-Fi Hotspots were a very significant recommendation of the Diamond Consulting “Broadband Needs Assessment Study,” and the “Free” part of these public hotspots are exactly the part of these amenities that make them so valuable and essential for local residents.

Make no mistake: DoITT’s plan establishes a $1 per day fee for internet service in parks. There may be a few free 10-minute blocks per month, and there may be ways to hide the $1 per day charge in a resident’s cable service internet bill, but with DoITT’s plan, NYC won’t have Free Wi-Fi. We’ll have $1 per day Wi-Fi, delivered to public spaces that are maintained by our tax dollars, paid to a couple of huge private corporations.

In fact, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable stand to make tens of millions of dollars per year providing this service. Central Park gets about 25m visitors per year, and if we ignore all other parks, and figure that fewer than half of those visitors buy one day of internet service per year, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision get paid $0.99 x 10 million visitors = $10,000,000.

Second, the industry standard for gaining access to such types of subscription service as are contemplated by DoITT and the cable companies requires that a prospective user of a fee-based Parks Hotspot will need to create an account and enter their billing information. This requires the submission of identity, address, and credit card information into a web form prior to gaining access to the hotspot. Essentially, by promoting this solution, DoITT is pushing NYC citizens and visitors to hand over deeply personal and secure information to a private organization over which neither the user nor DoITT has any control.

Contrast this to the way that NYCwireless offers free Wi-Fi to citizens: we do require registration of a user account so that we can track agreement to our Acceptable Usage Policy. However we require only a valid email address. No billing address, no credit card, no other identity information.

Personally, I am fearful of handing over such information to such private organizations, though I have in the past. But I am more fearful for the harm that will be done to those that depend more significantly upon Park Hotspots. How many city residents don’t have a credit card? How many children in playgrounds who couldn’t get a credit card even if they wanted to? Adults? How many city residents live in neighborhoods that are otherwise safe, but in which they would prefer not pulling out their wallet and a credit card just to get what should be Free Internet Access? How many city residents depend upon Free Wi-Fi because they live below the poverty line, and because they can’t afford or don’t want cable internet, cannot afford the $5 it would cost them to get internet access in a city park during the week?

Lastly, because of DoITT’s “whole package solution”, most NYC residents and visitors won’t see any Wi-Fi, for free or for fee, for years, since local organizations that would otherwise have sponsored the creation of a Free Public Wi-Fi Hotspot say “oh, well, the city is going to do this someday, so we won’t bother doing this now for our community.” If past experience is any predictor of future performance, it will be years before the first Paid Wi-Fi Hotspot is opened, and many more before many others are opened, if at all. Meanwhile, DoITT’s actions will have stopped in its tracks any plans for more hotspots that local organizations may be contemplating.

An Alternative Plan

For all these problems with DoITT’s plans, and these are just a few of the big ones, there does seem to be a reformulation of the cable franchise plan that would address the issues, and lead us to a more sustainable future with many more Free Public Wi-Fi Hotspots in NYC parks and public spaces.

We have presented in past testimony and our DoITT RFI response that there are three ways that that the City can support and foster the creation of more Free Wi-Fi Hotspots:

1. Provide or coordinate a source of funding that local organizations like BIDs can draw from to create Hotspots
2. Ensure that ISPs provide internet access services (at a competitive price) to which Hotspots can connect
3. Offer free access to park infrastructure, including buildings, electrical connections, and lamp posts for the installation of hotspot hardware

All three of these means of support can be accommodated through small adjustments to DoITT’s cable franchise agreements.

Funding

The cable franchise agreement establish a $10 million funding resource (provided in part via in-kind services) that the cable franchisees will spend to create hotspots in a few dozen parks. Instead, this funding resource should be allocated to the use of local organizations who can apply for funding (it costs about $10,000-$15,000 over 3 years to establish a hotspot in a medium sized park). The local organizations, such as BIDs, can use those funds to hire outside contractors, including, but not exclusively, NYCwireless, to build, operate, and maintain park and public space hotspots.

Internet Service

The cable franchise agreement implicitly establishes the allocation of internet access service to any park where a hotspot is created by a cable company. Instead, the internet access service that would have been used by a cable company’s own hotspot should be made available for free (or at least at cost) for any local organization to use in any park or public space to provide internet access to a created hotspot.

Park Infrastructure

The cable franchise agreement also implicitly establishes the availability of parks-based building and lamp-post infrastructure that would be used to house hotspot hardware for the cable companies. Instead, such building and lamp post infrastructure, plus any available electrical infrastructure (hotspots generally need the equivalent of 1-2 100 Watt light bulbs of power) should be made available to any local organization to use to house equipment for a hotspot.

We are hopeful that the NY City Council can establish guidelines and direction for both the Parks Department and DoITT in bringing more Free Wi-Fi Hotspots to New York City, for the benefit of residents and visitors.

Please be advised that the Committee on Technology jointly with the Committee on Parks and Recreation will hold a hearing on Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 11:00 a.m. in the 16th Floor Committee Room, 250 Broadway, New York, NY regarding the above-referred topic.

You are hereby invited to attend this hearing and testify therein.  Please feel free to bring with you such members of your staff you deem appropriate to the subject matter.

If you plan to participate, it would be greatly appreciated if you could bring twenty (20) copies double-sided of your written testimony to the hearing.  Due to increased building security procedures, please bring identification & allot some extra time for entry through the building lobby.

I would appreciate receiving a response from you as to whether or not you will be able to attend. Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Gary Altman
Legislative Counsel

We think the Wi-Fi concessions are really pretty weak, but are very happy that all the work we’ve done over the past 10 years has resulted in them even being on the table.

What we’d really like to see is that $10 million be put into a fund that can let local organizations, like BIDs, “Friends of” groups, and others that help out individual parks can use to bring 24/7/365 Free Wi-Fi to those parks. We’ve long said (and told DoITT, NYC EDC, and the Parks Department) that the biggest thing lacking for these local groups is funding for such projects.

Anyway, here are the docs:

DoITT Cable Franchise Key Accomplishments http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf

Cable Franchise Media Briefing http://d1.scribdassets.com/ScribdViewer.swf

Voterbook Manhattan, the Media and Democracy Coalition, People’s Production House and Free Press invite you to a panel and town hall:

WHEN: Saturday, April 3, 2 p.m.
WHERE: P.S. 20, the Anna Silver School
166 Essex Street, Lower East Side

A town hall discussion and panel about Internet access, what it means in our community, the threats from big cable and phone companies to censor your speech online – and how you can fight back.

PANELISTS:
Kris Rios, media policy associate with People’s Production House
Tim Karr, campaign director with Free Press
Dr. Michael Livermore, director of the NYU School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity
… and more!

Free and open to all. We will be screening some of the People’s Production House documentary “The Internet is Serious Business,” taking questions, and having a lively discussion.

For more information and to RSVP, contact Jeff Kurzon at jeffkurzon@gmail.com, or Hannah Miller at hmiller@media-democracy.net or 215-888-8036.

We look forward to seeing you!

Apparently, Mr. Cheplick is writing an “article” on the recently announced Miami Beach Free Wi-Fi network. We are certainly in favor of local city governments trying to help local residents and provide a valuable utility, especially when it is used to enable city workers and public safety services to get roaming internet access to better do their jobs and to save the city and taxpayers money.

But Mr. Cheplick’s bias against any such initiative, as well as the bias of his employer, shows through clearly in his initial email requesting NYCwireless comment. He even goes so far as to outright lie about the reasons behind the closure of other Muni-Wi-Fi networks (hint: it has something to do with the fact that the providers of such networks, such as Earthlink and MetroFi, either exited or went out of business). It seems clear to me that whatever Mr. Cheplick writes, its going to be heavily one sided, with a strong slant towards supporting big business and a big slant away from wanting to help local residents help themselves. Something to be aware of in case you come across Mr. Cheplick’s “article”.

Interestingly, I’ve met many conservatives and liberals alike that are big supporters of people and small local governments helping themselves. Its a mystery to me why anyone (unless you are an executive as a large Telco or Cableco) would be against people becoming self-sufficient. But then again, I don’t have an agenda paid for by an incumbent big business.

And yes, Mr. Cheplick, you are correct that “off-the-record” can be a two way street. So perhaps you’ll think twice about being naughty around the holidays. Hopefully, this public post will nicely match the lump of coal that was surely left in your stocking this year.

On Dec 18, 2009, at 5:59 PM, Thomas Cheplick wrote:

Hahah. I am afarid off-the-record is a two-way street. It has to be agreed to in-advance. Anything you or your organizations write to me, as a reporter, is on-the-record unless I agree to it not to be in-advance. At the moment, I have your organization down as refusing comment to ITTN News – which goes out to every state legislator office in the nation.

Dana Spiegel wrote:

Thomas,

We are not interested in participating in any reporting that has to do with the heartland institute. Anything I say to your organization is off the record and is not to be printed. In addition, we do not give you permission to use the NYCwireless name or that of any of our board members for any reason.

On Dec 26, 2009, at 3:52 PM, Thomas Cheplick wrote:

Why not? Why not get your comments in there? I say, check out my articles on Wi-Fi, they are very non-biased. I encourage you to revise your opinion. I would love to get and include your thoughts!

Best wishes, Thomas

— On Sat, 12/26/09, Dana Spiegel wrote:

I have no comment for the Heartland Institute.

On Dec 18, 2009, at 5:07 PM, Thomas Cheplick wrote:

Dear Dana

This is Thomas Cheplick – the reporter from the Heartland Institute.

I am working on a new story regarding Miami Beach launching a free municipal WiFi network.

This is quite a powerful muni WiFi network in that it blankets the whole city, provides free Wi-Fi access with 95% outdoor coverage and 70% indoor coverage (and up through the second floor of buildings)!

I am wondering what you think of this development in a general sense?

Also, considering that so many municipalities have had to shutdown their free WiFis because it is too expensive and city-wide WiFi’s are generally too slow and ineffective, what would you rate the chances of Miami Beach’s ultimate success here with its free WiFi?

And, on a related note, in St. Cloud in Florida, the City Council tried to shut down their free WiFi service because of the expense but stopped that initiative after residents who could not pay for their own Internet access protested loudly. In that vein, do you foresee municipal WiFi networks like Miami Beach’s at all becoming another entitlement program for Americans?

Any thoughts would be most appreciated!!

hope you are well.

Best wishes, Thomas

Friend Bruce Lincoln, Entrepreneur in Residence at Columbia Engineering’s Center for Technology, Innovation & Community Engagement, sent us an invite for a Community Broadband Hearing taking place next Friday, December 11 at Columbia. I’m planning to attend, and suggest those of you that fill the different roles outlined below attend as well.

If you are planning on attending, leave a comment so we can find you!

It is important that members of the local community have an opportunity to participate in the National Broadband Planning process which is currently underway in Washington.

Toward that end, I invite you to participate in an FCC Field Hearing on Friday, December 11, 2009 at Columbia University in New York. The meeting will be held in Davis Auditorium from 8:45 am until noon.

The field hearing will bring together policymakers, elected officials, not-for-profit organizations, small businesses, anchor institutions, public agencies, broadband providers, foundations, community-based organizations and community leaders, academicians, and researchers. Together we will share thoughts on how collectively we can ensure all New Yorkers have access to broadband and the educational, economic and social opportunities it can provide.

I hope you will be able to attend as a representative of your organization or constituency. To fully understand the importance of broadband access from all points of view, your participation is vital. The agenda includes a “community visioning session” where you will have an opportunity to share your thoughts, ideas, and concerns with the group.

You can confirm your attendance via e-mail to bl2317@columbia.edu.

Agenda

Friday, December 11, 2009
Davis Auditorium, Columbia University
8 am-noon

Download PDF Version

RFI Response to City Wireless Internet Access for New York City Parks and Other Open Spaces

Prepared by:

Dana Spiegel, Executive Director, NYCwireless
Rob Kelley and Anthony Townsend, Executive Board Members

Overview

NYCwireless is a non-profit organization that advocates and enables the growth of free, public wireless internet access in New York City and surrounding areas. Founded in 2001, NYCwireless serves thousands of individuals throughout the New York City metro area through the dozens of hotspots installed in NYC Parks, Public Spaces, and Affordable Housing Buildings.

Over the past several years, NYCwireless has built free, public wireless networks in dozens of New York City parks and open spaces through partnerships with local organizations such as the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation and Madison Square Park Conservancy and business improvement districts such as the Alliance for Downtown New York. These include hotspots in Bryant Park, Madison Square Park, Wagner Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Jackson Square Park, Stuyvesant Cove Park (the first fully solar powered hotspot in New York), Tompkins Square Park, Bowling Green Park, City Hall Park, the South Street Seaport, the Winter Garden, the Atrium at 60 Wall Street, Stone Street, Wall Street Park, and the Vietnam Veterans Plaza, among others.

NYCwireless also assists under-served communities in getting affordable internet access. NYCwireless works with Dunn Development Corporation and Community Access, a non-profit housing organization, to train volunteers and building residents to build and maintain wireless networks in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The networks provide 8 buildings with more than 50 residents per building with private, high-speed wireless connections.

According to a survey by NYCwireless Board Member Laura Forlano, Wi-Fi is a factor in attracting people to specific locations throughout the city for 70% of those surveyed. These findings have potential implications for economic development and support the rationale that WiFi may enable commerce and productivity that would not have occurred otherwise. For example, one respondent commutes 20 minutes from Queens to use the Bryant Park wireless network on weekends in order to work on his food and wine website outside rather than at home.

At NYCwireless, we’ve worked with many local leaders. Some of them are BIDs like the Downtown Alliance or public benefit corporations like the Battery Park City Authority. Some are local developers, like the one we’re working with in the West Village who transformed a park and part of a neighborhood from being a place for homeless people to being a place for families and children. These local leaders have transformed their communities, and helped us bring internet to the people. Unfortunately so many more come to us with visions of helping out their neighborhood, but don’t have the funds to make it happen. While NYCwireless provides a very low cost option for building public Wi-Fi, its not without installation and maintenance cost. And many of the local leaders we’ve spoken to have no current means to get the funding they need to build and create local broadband. In speaking with them, we know that with just enough funding, these people too could change their communities, and bring whole neighborhoods online. Funding must be injected into local communities in order to provide resources for these leaders to do their work.

How NYCwireless Works

Free public internet access in parks begins with NYCwireless seeking local interest and support. We work with local organizations, such as BIDs–like the Alliance for Downtown New York–and “Friends of…” groups, that approach our organization seeking help. Once locations are identified, we assist with the design of the wireless equipment deployment plan and seeking funding to support their build-out. NYCwireless provides design, installation, and support for the networks that we build through infrastructure, volunteer help, and the extensive know-how that we have developed over the past nine years.

The equipment that we use is open source and standards based, to ensure maximum compatibility with end-user equipment, including laptops, PDAs, and more recently iPhones and wireless VOIP phones. As a result, we ensure that both industry standard and novel uses of our networks are unrestricted, allowing residents, students and artists to invent new technologies and uses for public wireless networks.

Our hotspots are built using hardware from Metrix Communication LLC. The hotspots are mounted in a weatherproof metal case measuring approximately 6″ x 8″ x 3.5″, and utilize 802.11b/g mini-pci network cards. Two 70° sector antennas, measuring approximately 2 x 4.5 x 4.5 inches, are usually connected to the hotspot via low loss LMR cabling. Outdoor rated ethernet cabling connects the hotspot to the DSL modem or other internet access line, which is mounted inside of the building. Power is supplied to the hotspot utilizing Power Over Ethernet (POE) to minimize the indoor/outdoor cabling.

Our hotspots have generally been deployed outside of park grounds and public facilities, or in the case of Bryant Park, using facilities provided by the licensed private park operator. We generally mount our equipment atop or on local buildings with the support of our partner organizations, beaming the wireless signal into the park. This deployment strategy is sometimes ideal, since equipment can be installed quickly and there are sometimes no facilities within the park to support the mounting of equipment.

We can often deploy a hotspot for only a few thousand dollars, and in under two months, to service most or all of a park. Much of this time is spent designing the network, ordering equipment and DSL internet service, and gathering necessary agreements. Actual equipment installation can take 1-2 days.

Broadband Service Availability

Access to city-owned property isn’t the biggest issue in getting Wi-Fi deployed. Getting reasonably fast internet access lines (or WiMax uplinks) is the biggest problem. NYCwireless has had tremendous success rapidly deploying Wi-Fi equipment on building rooftops and even nearby businesses, but we (and WiFiSalon as well) have spent countless, fruitless hours getting internet lines from Verizon. In a recent example, it took over 4 months to get internet service to Wagner Park, even though our gear was installed within a month of signing a contract.

Ideally, the City would provide assistance facilitating the installation of internet access lines. This would include:

• Ensuring that ISPs, including Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Cablevision, provide connectivity in a nondiscriminatory and timely manner
• Ensuring that ISPs provide connectivity for reasonable rates comparable to the rates normal businesses are charged
• Ensuring that when an ISP claims to “not know” about a particular address, even though that address is within the city limits and contains an actual physical building structure, that the ISP is required to fix/update their database with valid information and expedite the installation of an internet access line if a phone line already exists

Sustainable Business Model

DoITT is potentially open to other business models for building Wi-Fi hotspots, though as experience in NYC and many other cities has shown, there aren’t any viable ones where businesses can independently fund the buildout and maintenance.

DoITT seems mostly steadfast in their insistence (as the Parks Department has been in the past) that no City funds should be spent on any buildout or maintenance of hotspots. This is still a really big sticking point: The first Parks RFP required that a concessionaire pay significant money to the Parks department, and the second Parks RFP required that a concessionaire pay some proposed amount of money to the Parks department.

There have been only a handful of interested companies (we offered to pay $1), and WiFiSalon, the only concessionaire that paid any fees under the Park’s 1st RFP was driven out of business by that requirement. Ad revenue is negligible since such networks see a fraction of the impressions that even a second-tier website sees, and sponsorship dollars are only available to the most prominent parks like Madison Square Park and Bryant Park, and such deals are done generally only through whole-park sponsorship, not sponsorship of just the Wi-Fi network.

NYCwireless fundamentally believes and the industry has seen countless times (including the companies MetroFi and EarthLink, and cities San Francisco and Portland, for example) that Ad-based business models are unsustainable for individual hotspots and even reasonable sized hotspot networks. If DoITT and the City want to really ensure that free public Wi-Fi should be made available, and that locations other than the most highly trafficked and well-to-do are served, they need to step up and offer alternative funding models.

One thing to consider is that the companies that can do the installation and maintenance of high-quality outdoor hotspots (there are few) don’t have big advertising or sales teams to make them self-funding. These are two orthogonal specialties and forcing a single company to be capable of both severely limits the applicant pool and threatens the business viability of any participating company. NYCwireless has been successful because we provide all of the back-end technical know how and support for free public Wi-Fi hotspots. We are paid by our partners (BIDs and others) to perform this service, and they do the money raising since that’s what they are good at.

If DoITT and the NYC Government insist on Ad-based models, the best way to organize the funding of the organizations that build hotspots is to separately manage the sales of ads or sponsorship through either a centralized City agency or through a separate RFP that would be awarded to a marketing or ad-sales company. Hotspots would be required to use standard, open-source and free technology for displaying ads sold through the agency in order to receive funding through the RFP program.

Eligible Service Providers

Since each public space identified by DoITT has its own local community, and the problems and issues presented by each public space differ, NYCwireless has long believed that individually choosing providers for each city park is an important component in ensuring that appropriate Wi-Fi service is provided. Modeling its program after well-received plans put forth by Boston Wireless Task Force and implemented by OpenAirBoston, DoITT would do well to ensure that:

• Multiple providers are given the opportunity to install networks in each neighborhood, park, or set of parks
• Providers make use of interoperable equipment and technology so that a park’s equipment need not be reinstalled should that provider go out of business or be found unable to provide service, allowing a new provider to assume management of the equipment
• Local providers (those who’s base of operations is within the local neighborhood of the hotspot) or providers that have local community ties and affiliations, be preferred over those that are national or regional, since this will ensure the local community will help and support the hotspot

Additional Sites where Wi-Fi Makes Sense

Existing hotspots (with the exception for the Parks Department concession-based hotspots) sponsored by BIDs and other organizations have been built without much involvement by the Parks Department, and often in spite of any blockades the Parks Department has put up. BIDs and other organizations that have the resources to fund the creation of hotspots should be able to do so, and should be assisted by the NYC government (DoITT, Parks, etc.) without having to go through RFPs and other bureaucratic measures. When requested, the relevant City agency should facilitate all aspects of the creation of the hotspot, including providing free access to City owned building infrastructure.

Existing infrastructure must be made affordable and available. A big barrier to creating local community networks is getting access to places to put equipment. One solution would be to make City light poles available free or at low cost on an individual basis for the deployment of community supported networks. NYCwireless can help out with this initiative by helping to create a standard, weatherproof, upgradable hardware package, which we currently use in our outdoor wireless networks.

DoITT is looking mostly for one or a few companies to step up and do all the work. We’ve long talked about how the City can take a grass-roots approach to getting local parks and public spaces lit up, but for the most part, DoITT is focussing only on the biggest and most prominent locations. This is unfortunate, since the people in lower income neighborhoods and further afield areas are often the ones who benefit the most from such initiatives, but they seem to be mostly left out of this initiative.

DoITT and the City should make available to any interested local community organization or BID a set of resources to help them understand how they can help themselves set up a community-based hotspot. Such information resources would include technical information, organizational information and contacts for for-profit and not-for-profit organizations that can help the community strategize and build out the hotspot. It should also provide case studies for how other BIDs and community organizations built their hotspots, including cost structures, that would serve as models.

Most importantly, funding sources must be created that can support local organizations doing the heavy lifting. There are leaders in every community in New York City who have the power and will to create local solutions for bringing the internet to the people, and bringing all of their community members to the table. Setting up a fund such that any local group can apply for and be granted a few tens of thousands of dollars per year, for a period of 3-5 years, to use to bring Wi-Fi to a park or a public space would help tremendously.

Additionally, building developers and Condominium and Co-op boards have tremendous ability to create solutions, as NYCwireless’ work with Dunn Development Corporation has proved. Providing a tax incentive for for-profit developers and funding for non-profit developers to light up the public and semipublic spaces they create would ensure that anywhere people go they would have internet access.

Funding can also be attracted via state and federal sources, as well as through private companies and individuals. NYCwireless has been successful, but why not have hundreds of NYCwireless-like organizations, each working to solve local broadband issues.

New Technologies

In the long term, it is important to recognize that laptops and mobile devices may ship with newer wireless standards. However, the industry is quite a number of years from this happening, and for the foreseeable future, Wi-Fi is it–Apple introduced Wi-Fi on laptops 10 years ago, and those laptops are still compatible with today’s Wi-Fi networks. All laptops sold in the US today ship with Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) adapters and have so for the past few years. They will continue to do so for a number of years to come, and the various forms of Wi-Fi are all backwards compatible with each other such that an 802.11b network deployed 8 years ago (by NYCwireless) is still usable by today’s computers. Wi-Fi is so widely distributed in homes and in businesses that it is almost unthinkable that computers 10 years from now won’t be able to use Wi-Fi networks installed over the next few years.

Additionally, Wi-Fi equipment installed in hotspots by NYCwireless generally has a 3-5 year lifetime for the Wi-Fi radios (our hotspots consist of access point computers with Wi-Fi radio cards). Our hardware is field upgradable to new Wi-Fi radios, and we expect that our hotspots, with upgraded radios, to have a 5-10 year lifetime.

Furthermore, there exist no other widely deployed local wireless internet access technologies that are available on the market, let alone ones available for $500-$1000 per hardware installation. WiMax, though beginning to see wider deployment, is not suitable as hotspot equipment (it is much more similar to cell data towers), and no standard shipping laptop today contains a WiMax card.

The wide availability and deployment of Wi-Fi makes it the only reasonable wireless technology choice for hotspot deployment, and we urge DoITT to require Wi-Fi as the technology of choice for any hotspot installed in a City Park or Public Space. We also recommend that DoITT require that open-standard, field-upgradable equipment is used, and require industry standards and possibly open hardware that ensures vendor lock in isn’t possible.

Insurance Requirements

NYCwireless has hotspots where there is NO equipment on park property at all (its on a neighboring building rooftop). Beyond insurance requirements for the actual installation and physical maintenance of equipment, no significant insurance requirements should be required. Furthermore, we have inquired of insurance agencies about seeking coverage according to the Parks Department’s requirements, and were informed that such insurance would be “an invitation for lawsuits” and would be expensive. The equipment used for NYCwireless hotspots is installed in publicly inaccessible locations, so liability for such equipment is inappropriate.

The embedded video is from session 3, and the discussion about NYCwireless happens between 25:00 and 38:00.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/KUmZs9IEQV4&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0

Thanks to ISOC for getting these videos online!

DATE: FRIDAY, MARCH 6th, 2009 TIME: 6PM-9PM
LOCATION: New York University, Warren Weaver Hall (251 Mercer), Room 109
PRICE:  ADMISSION IS FREE. (RSVP requested, rsvp@bway.net )

In 1984, AT&T, then the largest company in the U.S., was broken up because of the monopoly controls “Ma Bell” had over telecommunications. Known as “Divestiture”, we have reached the 25th anniversary of the AT&T breakup and it is time to look carefully and critically at the deregulation of telecommunications to evaluate the effectiveness of this important economic policy.

Open Infrastructure Alliance, (OIA) together with the Internet Society, (ISOC) New York chapter, is convening a series of panels to dialog on the deregulation of the telecommunications industry. Among the key issues to be considered are:

• Has divestiture worked? A careful examination of the consequences of divestiture and deregulation over the last 25 years.
• America is ranked 15th in the world in broadband. What role does America’s closed broadband networks (e.g., Verizon’s FiOS and AT&T’s U-Verse) play in such a ranking? Do closed networks fulfill last mile requirements of the Telecom Act of 1996?
• The Obama administration and Congress have put together a massive economic stimulus package, including broadband infrastructure projects. Does this new legislation address the major issues or are other steps necessary?

The dialogue will assess whether deregulation has helped or harmed America’s digital future. What role should a new, reconstituted FCC play? What policies and programs are needed to make America #1 again in technology, broadband and the Internet?

Confirmed Speakers: (More to Come)

• Tom Allibone, LTC Consulting
• Jonathan Askin, Esq, Brooklyn Law School
• Dave Burstein, DSL Prime
• Frank A. Coluccio, Cirrant Partners Inc
• Mark Cooper, Consumer Federation of America
• Alex Goldman, ISP Planet
• Fred Goldstein, Ionary Consulting
• Bruce Kushnick, New Networks Institute
• Dean Landsman, Landsman Communications Group
• Scott McCollough, Esq.
• Joe Plotkin, Bway.net
• David Rosen, Consultant

Market:

• A 25 year analysis of the Age of the Bell companies.
• How did America become 15th in the world in broadband?
• What is the role of the cable and phone companies?
• What happened to the price of phone service?
• Is wireless overtaking wireline services?

Regulation:

• Has deregulation helped or harmed the America’s digital future?
• How do we deal with corporate controls over the FCC, or should we scrap the FCC?
• How do we fund and create open, ubiquitous, high-speed networks?
• What should happen next with wireless services?
• What is the status of competition today, and what needs to be changed for the future?
• What applications are going to drive the next generation?
• Is it time for another divestiture or other regulatory changes?

For More Information:
Joe Plotkin
T: 646-502-9796
E: bwayjoe@bway.net
Internet Society, NY Chapter
E: president@isoc-ny.org