Broadband & Community Wireless: Latest Articles

Overseas Wireless Deployments Offer Lessons For U.S.

Ron Tang — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 06:45:00 -0400

How we measure success is as important as what we are measuring. On March 19, 2008, the FCC dramatically revised its broadband data collection, in essence, finally giving in to mounting evidence that current assessments have been woefully inadequate. Previous data collection may have allowed politicians to declare "mission accomplished" -- that universal affordable broadband is available throughout the United States -- yet the fact remains that large swaths of the United States have fallen behind a growing list of other countries in broadband provision.

Within the U.S. context, wireless networks have often followed a familiar trajectory: utilizing hyperbolic and misleading… more

Philadelphia Network Flop Points To Failure Of Corporate Franchise Model

Ron Tang — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:21:00 -0400

Last year, New America Foundation released an in-depth report and analysis of the Wireless Philadelphia Project, “The Philadelphia Story: Learning from a Municipal Wireless Pioneer.” We concluded that the private franchise model was suboptimal and that Philadelphia’s solution was problematic in a number of ways. At the time, we received good press coverage and a helluvalot of blowback from certain constituencies (who continued to assert that everything was on track).

Now that we’ve made it to May, 2008, Wireless Philadelphia is on its last legs. While many of us are still working to salvage something from this mess, reading through… more

The COMMONS Initiative

Ron Tang — Thu, 15 May 2008 10:52:00 -0400

Over the past several years, interest in municipal wireless and community networking has increased dramatically. Thus far, these initiatives have generally focused on networking local communities. The next evolution in networking involves peering these networks together. Research on broadband service provision is desperately needed to help forge new national telecommunications policies and inspire innovation in networking technologies.

With this goal in mind, the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (“CAIDA”) held a workshop to discuss -- and ultimately propose -- collaboration among researchers and networks to simultaneously solve three acute and growing problems facing the Internet. First, there exists a self-reported… more

Municipal Wireless Success Demands Public Involvement, Experts Say

Ron Tang — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:00:00 -0400

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 failed last year -- not governments in their traditional role as the builders and maintainers of critical infrastructure.

How we… more

To Whom May I Direct Your Free Call?

Articles — Sun, 12 Oct 2003 06:00:00 -0400

In the fall of 2000, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis had not yet earned any powerful enemies, at least so far as they were aware. They were just two obscure Swedish entrepreneurs who had worked with three Estonian programmers to write a file-sharing application called Kazaa. At the time, the free program was merely one of Napster's several weak stepsisters, lumped together in news reports with the likes of Snarfzilla and ToadNode.

But a few months later, the record industry and its lawyers swatted down Napster. And Kazaa, with its easy-to-use interface and reliable technology, quickly began scooping up users.… more

Your Cellphone is a Homing Device

Articles — Tue, 01 Jul 2003 03:00:00 -0400

If you purchased a new cellphone over the past 18 months or so, odds are that one of the features listed in small print on the side of the box was "E911 capable." Or, as in the case of my latest Motorola, "Location technology for piece [sic] of mind." Perhaps you asked the salesman to explain the feature, and he replied that it means that cops can home in on your phone in case of an emergency, a potentially important perk should you ever find your hand pinned beneath an immovable boulder in rural Utah, as Aron Ralston did recently.… more

Sky Dayton's Long Road to Internet Nirvana

Articles — Tue, 01 Oct 2002 06:00:00 -0400

Fresh from a morning surf off the coast of Malibu, the maharishi of the wireless Internet shows up at the Beverly Hills Four Seasons sporting a rumpled T-shirt and Mayan sandals. It's an outfit more popular among aging head shop owners than youthful tech moguls, but Sky Dylan Dayton likes to live up to his Age of Aquarius name.

Besides, the Wavy Gravy getup is crucial to Dayton's offbeat allure. His man-of-the-people sales patter could seem corny coming from a member of the Brooks Brothers set. But those sandals. The puppy-dog eyes. The nervous throat clearing. Dayton's a master at… more

Fill Potholes on America's Info Highway

Articles — Thu, 13 Jun 2002 03:00:00 -0400

The Bush administration has largely ignored the nation's $700-billion telecommunications industry's free fall, a costly mistake for the U.S. economy. Stock prices are down 75%, and telecom companies are expected to reduce their capital spending for the second year in a row.

President Bush should use today's White House high-tech industry forum to announce a national broadband strategy.

U.S. broadband usage--the number of households that use high-speed Internet connections--is stalled at less than 10%. This delays the productivity-enhancing new applications that require faster connections and puts us well behind South Korea, where more than 50% of households use broadband. The… more

Calling Plan

Articles — Tue, 26 Feb 2002 04:00:00 -0500

The so-called Tauzin-Dingell Act, slated for a House vote this Wednesday, has seemingly spawned more drive-time radio ads than "Hooked on Phonics." The bill would allow the "Baby Bell" phone companies to offer long-distance data services without first abandoning their local monopolies, thus nixing a key regulatory provision of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Because interstate broadband is worth billions, the four titans of regional telecom -- Verizon, SBC, Qwest, and BellSouth -- have spent months saturating the airwaves with gooey messages about how Tauzin-Dingell will launch, say, North Dakota wheat farmers into the Internet Era.

But the Bells… more

Tech Bubble Redux

Articles — Sun, 17 Feb 2002 04:00:00 -0500

Even as the Enron and Global Crossing bankruptcies further expose the spectacular waste fostered by the 1990s' Information Age bubble, an army of lobbyists in Washington is fighting to secure government support for broadband communications, the "next wave" of the "new economy." Subsidizing an ultra-fast Internet, it's said, will energize everything, from the stock market to our democracy itself. But if the unbalanced, profligate economy of the '90s has taught us anything, it should be the danger of granting any one sector, no matter how appealing, special political favor.

To a remarkable extent, broadband boosters are recycling promises unfulfilled… more

The Broadband Economy

Articles — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 04:00:00 -0500

A resource crucial to the economic recovery of the United States is buried underground. Hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable, which enables the fast, robust communication that was so important to the economic success of the last decade, currently lies unused, the digital equivalent of fallow farmland.

America needs to put this asset to work. Broadband -- the generic term for high-speed, high-capacity, always-on data networks -- is integral to the improvement of the American economy. To help businesses and consumers gain access to this technology, Congress and the administration must come up with a bold broadband… more

Remote Control

Articles — Mon, 01 Oct 2001 09:00:00 -0400

Early last December, as the postelection fracas neared its end, the conservative Progress and Freedom Foundation hosted a one-day Washington conference on the future of communications. The event drew a Who's Who of telecom lobbyists, elite members of prestigious K Street firms that represent companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Viacom, The top draw was a keynote speech by Michael K. Powell, a member of the Federal Communications Commission who was widely expected to become the agency's next chairman.

The high-powered audience was eager to learn how Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, would steer the FCC through the… more

Disconnect

Articles — Mon, 01 Oct 2001 03:00:00 -0400

On the last Friday in August, President Bush, fresh from his vacation in Texas, was asked by a reporter about his plans to address the frustration so many Americans currently face trying to get high-speed Internet access. The president didn't appear terribly worried. "The technologies are evolving," he said, with equanimity. His only concern was that "the economic slowdown will perhaps slow down some of the progress made, as far as high-speed access." The possibility that the telecom industry's collapse and the sudden scarcity of high-speed access might have been a major cause of the economic slowdown did not seem… more