Why should I care?
Wireless? We'll get there. Relax.

Amanda Patterson

It’s official: Boston is going wireless. The mayor recently announced the creation of a Wireless Task Force to move the Hub towards full connectivity. Lots of cities have announced plans to create broad wireless networks, but there is no winner yet in the race to “unwire.” Portland, Oregon, was first to announce its wireless efforts in 2002, but four years later it still isn’t up yet. Philadelphia announced plans to unwire in 2004, and is now closer to lift-off than any other any other large city, but it’s been a complicated process. And San Francisco only entered the fray with a call for proposals by their mayor last year.

That hasn’t stopped the Boston Globe from painting the issue as a breathless neck and neck race. The city’s future as a technology center “could hinge” on wireless internet, the paper recently gasped, and we will now be “playing catch-up” with San Francisco and Philadelphia.

Apparently, the press wants cities to race each other to a wireless future. But behind the drama, serious issues remain to be determined: who will provide the infrastructure, how do we get them to pay for it, and what kinds of inter-authority cooperation will be needed. Before Comcast’s contract comes up for re-negotiation next year, we can learn something from the successes—and mistakes—of other cities that come before us

“It’s not a race,” said Michael Oh a Wireless Task Force member and cofounder of Boston Wireless Advocacy Group. “Being the first city doesn’t mean having the best system.”

Derek Pew, Interim CEO of Wireless Philadelphia, is the first to agree that it’s not a competition. “Other cities probably want to look at us and see if it works,” he says. Though Philadelphia has been the vanguard, breaking new technological ground and striking deals with the providers, it has been a long, hard road, says Pew.

First of all, the technology for widespread wireless networks is still being developed, and cities have very different agendas than for-profit corporations, making negotiations tricky. Secondly, there have been third parties like utilities to negotiate with and telecommunication regulation to work around. Then there was the complexity of getting disparate governmental departments to work together, not to mention local legal issues to smooth out.

Compared to the struggles Philadelphia faced, waiting until now has given Boston an advantage. “We need a really deliberate process,” said Geeta Prahdan of The Boston Foundation. The Foundation presented their in-depth study Boston UnPlugged; Mapping a Wireless Future to the Task Force last week, following the mayor’s announcement.“We [also] need a realistic time frame,” Prahdan said.

Philadelphia and San Francisco announced their plans with fanfare and then hit obstacles they never expected. Their early announcements may have given them bad press they didn’t deserve, as they were charting new territory. “I don’t want to sound like a Monday morning quarterback, but it seems like they caught the telecom industry by surprise,” says Boston city councilor John Tobin. He has been thinking about city-wide wireless internet since 2004. Last year he sponsored a wifi summit at the Science Museum to explore how a wifi system could benefit the city and its residents.

High speed internet costs between $30-$60 dollars a month. Add that to Boston’s already pushy cost of living and clearly there are lots of people who aren’t able to look for jobs, study, or do research at home.

Steve Garfield, a video producer from J.P. can think of lots of reason that the city should go wireless. “It would make the city such a welcoming place,” Garfield said. He recently landed in Ft. Lauderdale airport, where the Internet was free. “I was totally happy and connected.”

“Places that do free wifi on their own, they are getting people to come,” says Garfield. He meets with his video blog group, The Boston Media Makers, at Sweet Finnish, a free wifi bakery café in J.P.

But if Boston went wireless it wouldn’t just be about good feelings. “The city as a whole gains when people who haven’t had exposure have improved levels of education,” says Oh, the driving force behind a NewburyOpen.net, a free wireless network on Newbury Street. His network, along with other wireless networks already running here at the Boston Public Library and other Internet cafes will give the city a good a head start on the process.

But the real test will come when it comes time to talk numbers. Tobin is proud that the city hasn’t spent “a dime” of the cities money yet, but money is going to become an issue as soon as the city is ready to build infrastructure. “Nothing is free,” Tobin says. “All I know is there’s an opportunity to get all of our residents up to speed.”

To do that, however, slow and steady will win the race. So let’s start stretching, and save the drama for the marathon.

Amanda Patterson can be reached at apatterson@theoysteronline.com

03/01/2006   |   Permalink