The Portland Tribune has a Portland Cloud Updater (but no real news):
Sometime this summer, [Portland] will ask private companies to bid on building a $10 million citywide wireless broadband network that offers low-cost Internet service to schools, hospitals, government, small businesses, individuals and, well, everyone under the cloud. A contract could be awarded late this year with a system in place sometime in 2006.It makes us a more exciting place to live and helps us compete economically, said Commissioner Erik Sten. If you think the future is communications and creativity, then this is a great step forward.
The city hasn t yet offered details. But a broad outline of the plan calls for a system owned and operated by a private company, with the city becoming a major customer, an anchor tenant, if you will, along with TriMet and Portland Public Schools. The three entities have taken part in talks about the plan over the last several years. Gresham and other local governments also are interested.
All the cities are groping for how to do this, said Daniel Aghion, executive director of the Wireless Internet Institute, a Boston-based think tank that promotes the worldwide spread of wireless service. There s going to be a lot of trial and error because there s no precedent. But cities cannot ignore the matter. They have to get involved because they re threatened by the inner-city digital divide or economic development competition. There s consequences and pain if you get left behind.
The move would put the winning bidder in direct competition with Qwest Communications and Comcast Corp., the two major providers of high-speed Internet connections in Portland.
Almost every corner of the city already has an Internet hookup available, said Mike Dewey, executive director of the Oregon Cable Telecommunications Association. He doesn t see a threat in a new wireless system. If a private company wants to come in and build the infrastructure, that s fine, he said. But how does it compete with the phone company, Qwest, and with Comcast? Is the private company going to pay franchise fees? They ought to.
City ordinances require payment of standard franchise fees for private wireless operations that use the public right of way.
If there was a high-speed, citywide wireless cloud, you could get the same speed for a third of the price, said Nigel Ballard, director of wireless for Matrix Networks in Milwaukie and a member of the city s wireless planning committee. It makes us competitive, technologically savvy and keeps companies here.
Also pushing the system is Intel Corp., which hopes to sell the silicon used in the networks. Paul Butcher, Intel s state and local marketing manager, said a wireless cloud would bring expensive technologies within financial reach of smaller companies. With a cheap Internet connection, a maintenance company, for example, could afford a global positioning system to track its trucks.
An aid to public services Portland officials see large and small advantages. Offering cheap Internet connections could lure new businesses and create many small-scale city efficiencies. For example, each of the city of Portland s smart parking meters now use a small cell-phone device to report its credit card transactions, costing $22 a month each. An Internet connection could cut that cost in half, Ballard said. Police officers and maintenance workers could file reports from the field. On-site inspections could be done automatically. Ambulances could link instantly to the hospital, fire crews to hazmat databases and police cars to full records and photos.
Local governments are suited to host such a system, said Marshal Runkel, an aide to City Councilman Eric Sten who has been helping shepherd the city s initiative, because they can offer many sites for the antennas, including utility poles, maintenance sheds and parks. Portland s plan probably will include free hot zones parks and other public places but most users would subscribe. This is where the public wants government to go, thinking about ways to promote business with more efficient services at lower cost, Runkel said.
In 1998, Portland, Ore., David Olson, director of the City’s Office of Cable Communications and City Councilman Eric Sten, at the behest of a thriving local technology industry, tried to force AT&T to open its local broadband cable networks to competing ISPs. AT&T sued the city, losing the first round but winning on appeal.
Sten and his assistant, Marshall Runkel, took two lessons away from the fight. First, that competition is crucial to realizing broadband’s promise. Second, that similar projects are much more appealing if they don’t provoke the legal teams of major telecom corporations.
That’s why Runkel emphasizes his interest in a public-private partnership to provide Wi-Fi access throughout Portland’s downtown business district to spur economic growth and broadband competition.
No matter how sound or innovative the process, however, cheaper, better technology will always be just around the corner. Everyone knows that. The bottom line is simple; at some point there may come a time when spending serious money on monthly broadband cellular fees just doesn’t make good fiscal sense.
Competing wireless ISPs could provide a variety of service options. A “free” component could bridge the “digital divide”. City employees could work more efficiently and save taxpayer dollars. It’s a model several cities are following.
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State-Wide Initiatives
Michigan, North Carolina, Utah and Kentucky, to name a few, have Broadband Authorities that make ubiquitous broadband a priority.
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With Solectek 5.8 GHz radios, New Orleans links live cameras in a NLOS environment using 3 base stations and 20 network cameras skimming the tops of trees and structures over 1-2 miles.
Wireless Philadelphia, MonroeCountyWiFi and WirelessHoustonCounty are a few of the hundreds on municipal projects in the United States. WiMax Coop has a plan — work together for mutual benefit.
The Korean government’s build-it-and-they-shall-come approach spurred a broadband revolution. With 75 percent of Korean households having broadband access (compared with 20 percent of U.S. households) and almost 80 percent having wireless phones, the ubiquity of broadband and wireless services has created a development environment that’s completely different than that which exists here in terms of services, products, and human behavior.
Mobile WiMAX - 802.16e - has greater potential than fixed WiMAX say Airspan, Alcatel, BT, Navini Networks, NextNet Wireless, Samsung and others, according to Dan O’Shea in Telephony.
But Portland’s VeriLAN has already installed a Vivato phased array antenna on a Portland television tower. They have implemented mesh in Tigard, Oregon and have plans to couple inexpensive mesh hardware with their phased array Vivato panels. Like Spokane.
Mayor Potter’s Bureau Innovation Project stimulated more than 100 comments on the Portand Communique Weblog. I still like my concept of using News 4 Neighbors as the interconnecting weblog glue for a city cloud.
DailyWireless has more on Philly’s Fight, Verizon Blocking Philly Cloud?, the Philadelphia Cloud, Low Income Housing Connection, Digital Divide Solutions, SBC Fiber Plans, Taipei Unwired, Unwired Countries, and the DailyWireless City Cloud Report
Other U.S. cities that are building city-wide clouds include Athens, GA, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Boston, Bellevue & Kirkland, Cerritos, Charleston, South Carolina, Durham/Raleigh, North Carolina, FreeBeeAtlanta, OneCleveland, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Datona Beach, Hermosa Beach, Indianapolis, Louisville, Long Beach, Kennewick, WA, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, Vancouver, Washington, Hermiston, OR, Medford, OR, Louisville Kentucky, Washington DC and others. WiFi Planet’s Hotspot Hits keeps tabs.
Related DailyWireless stories on “zones” include; WiMax On The Move, Sprint + Nextel = Cable?, Will 802.20 Challenge WiMax?, WiFi Vrs WiMax, Unlicensed Spectrum: The Sum of All Fears, FCC Opens 3.5 GHz Band, Decision in Nextel’s Court, National Wireless ISPs, Intel Inside Clearwire, ClearWire Launches Pre-WiMax, Wireless Cable Modem, Telephony’s Guide to WiMax, Realistic WiMax Range/Speed Projections?, FCC: Nextel Gets PCS Spectrum, 4G Goes Ballistic, IEEE Scores 802.16d, Sprint Plans National EV-DO Service, FCC Alters MMDS Band, Equal Access: Not, National 802.16 from McCaw, Spectrum Cowboys, TV Broadband, Mobile TV Spectrum and NextNet Deploys. WiMax Switcharoo and Cingular Buys AT&T for $41 Billion.
