Municipal Wi-Fi competes with DSL and cable
Even Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) has noticed the rise of municipal wireless broadband networks and their potential for creating competition in the market for broadband services. The article mentions the municipal wireless broadband networks in Chaska, Minnesota and Cerritos, California, which I have written about on Muniwireless. It also says that free Wi-Fi hotspots encourage people not to buy a Even Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) has noticed the rise of municipal wireless broadband networks and their potential for creating competition in the market for broadband services. The article mentions the municipal wireless broadband networks in Chaska, Minnesota and Cerritos, California, which I have written about on Muniwireless. It also says that free Wi-Fi hotspots encourage people not to buy a cable or DSL subscription.
In Chaska, the most attractive broadband offer is from the city-owned ISP: they are charging $16 per month, less than half of what cable and DSL operators are asking.
“The other broadband providers might lose a few customers,” said Brad Mayer, who manages Chaska’s Wi-Fi network. Sprint (FON) and Time Warner Cable (TWX) are the town’s two other broadband providers. Mayer says 450 people are already signed up to use the new Chaska.net Wi-Fi service. He expects about 2,000 customers to subscribe.
Apparently the Chaska project started because outlying businesses could not get broadband service. The city stepped in and provided it and since the cost of building the network was low, they decided to make it available to everyone. They are using 200 Wi-Fi antennas from Tropos (mounted on city buildings, electrical poles and street lamps) and the network cost $500,000 to build.
In the case of Cerritos, California, the community had very poor broadband coverage although it is by no means in a rural area. Cerritos is located in greater Los Angeles. The city asked Verizon to expand DSL service (25% of the city did not have broadband) but Verizon could not give them a definite commitment. So the city asked Aiirmesh, a local ISP, to build a city-wide network. They gave Aiirmesh the right to put antennas on city buildings and traffic signals. Aiirmesh charges $40 per month. Strictly speaking, the Cerritos network, unlike that of Chaska, belongs to a private party.
As for free Wi-Fi, it’s not only demolishing the business models of expensive paid-for Wi-Fi services, it is even competing with wired DSL and cable. The IBD article points out that free Wi-Fi is popular among students who don’t want to pay for broadband service. The two examples cited by IBD are students who use their laptops in cafes that offer free Wi-Fi.
I posted a link to the article last week but IBD took it down. If you search their archives for it, you have to pay (which is something we don’t do here on Muniwireless).
Previous Muniwireless articles:
Chaska, Minnesota
Cerritos, California
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