Sascha Meinrath

The New America Foundation/Wireless Future Program is pleased to announce that the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks (ISC4CWN) will be held on May 28th – May 30th, 2008 in Washington, DC. Co-hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) at its downtown headquarters, IS4CWN is the largest gathering of community wireless networking developers, implementers and allies working to build universal, low-cost wireless broadband networks around the world. The Summit serves as an integral… more

Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out (New York Times)

. . . “The entire for-profit model is the reason for the collapse in all these projects,” said Sascha Meinrath, technology analyst at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit research organization in Washington.

Mr. Meinrath said that advocates wanted to see American cities catch up with places like Athens, Leipzig and Vienna, where free or inexpensive Wi-Fi already exists in many areas.

He said that true municipal… more

Most media have it wrong. Municipal wireless networks across the United States didn't stumble in 2007 -- high-profile cities where deals fell apart, such as Chicago, San Francisco and Houston, were not going to finance, own or operate their respective networks. These weren't municipal networks at all. The business model that faltered in 2007 was the "private corporate franchise" model based on the deal that Philadelphia and EarthLink agreed to in 2006. It was, in fact, the free market that… more

Wanted: A More Digital Congress (New York Times)

. . . Another way to share content online with voters, said Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation, is including access to a program like Google Documents, which allows multiple users to edit the same document. The idea is that if congressmen put a preliminary draft of a bill in an open source program on their sites, then specialists out in their home districts could amend the language or… more

When EarthLink announced its decision to withdraw further investments in municipal wireless networks in November 2007, the future of Philadelphia's network, along with hundreds of municipal wireless projects, became uncertain. Wireless Philadelphia, the nation's first big-city municipal wireless initiative, led the way for cities to invest in broadband infrastructure. Although a number of other muni wireless networks have been set up and are running successfully (such as St. Cloud, FL and Chaska and Minneapolis, MN) troubles with the Philadelphia… more

Philly Fears Earthlink May Bail on WiFi Network (NPR)

Philadelphia's wireless Internet network was supposed to be a model for the nation, but the project has been plagued by delays and spotty service. Now EarthLink, the company building it, is getting out of the municipal wireless business in other cities. That may leave Philadelphia disconnected.

...NPR reports on Philadelphia wireless and interviews Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation Wireless Future Program. Listen to the segment here.

The past year witnessed an event unprecedented in modern U.S. telecommunications history. A relatively obscure telecommunications policy debate spilled outside the rarefied airs of Congressional Committees and the Federal Communications Commission’s eighth floor to rage across the Blogosphere, major newspapers, YouTube and episodes of The Daily Show. This contentious discussion centers on an issue known as “network neutrality,” defined broadly as the non-discriminatory interconnectedness among data communication networks that allows users to access the content, and run the services, applications,… more

When discussing the state of municipal Wi-Fi in Philadelphia, the conversation is almost always about whether or not Earthlink is going to hold up its end of the deal and build out the system. (That seems unlikely in the face of their recent Philly no-show.) However, The Ethos Group has taken a broader view of Philadelphia’s municipal wireless system. They’ve published a 64-page report (pdf) which reviews the entire history of the system. “This report examines… more

The Ethos Group's report, "The Philadelphia Story: Learning from a Municipal Wireless Pioneer," has been posted on the New America Foundation's web site. The report is stirring debate and will continue to as the discussion of life-after-EarthLink moves forward. ...

For the complete story, please click here. The report was released at an event organized by the New America Foundation in Philadelphia on December 11.

Beset with preliminary technical woes and a lack of political traction in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission, a new organization started up on Dec. 12 to promote the unlicensed use of interference buffer spectrum between television channels.

The Wireless Innovation Alliance, a coalition of technology companies, public interest advocates, think tanks and higher education groups, said it hopes to work with Congress and the FCC to develop regulations for the use of the spectrum known as "white spaces."

Although broadcasters are allocated hundreds of megahertz of spectrum… more