Media Alliance, a 29 year-old media resource and advocacy center for media workers, non-profit organizations, and social justice activists, submitted its response to the San Francisco RFI and posted it on their website. To read the entire reponse, click here.Media Alliance, a 29 year-old media resource and advocacy center for media workers, non-profit organizations, and social justice activists, submitted its response to the San Francisco RFI and posted it on their website. To read the entire reponse, click here.
Like BARWN, Media Alliance wants San Francisco to foster more competition and to commit itself to the principle of open, neutral networks. They also believe the city should build and own the fiber layer (Layer 1):
We support the City’s vision of universal and free access to the Internet as an alternative to the phone and cable monopolies. Robust competition and consumer choice need to be safeguarded in San Francisco to improve customer service and affordability.
. . . .
A wireless solution that would leave the City at the mercy of the phone and cable monopolies will not work. The City should build its own Internet backbone over time and consider this a long-term investment in order to achieve a truly independent municipal system.
And they advocate open architecture systems than run on open source software:
This initiative should run as an open system on open source software, allowing multiple and competing service providers are able to gain access to the network infrastructure, and to lease and provide their own services.
Media Alliance wants a more open RFI/RFP process. There should be ongoing dialogue between the city and stakeholders after Sept 30 RFI response deadline:
In order for the continuing feedback to be truly meaningful, the City should not produce a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Qualifications (RFQ) or engage in backroom negotiations with potential vendors until the results of this RFI are promptly summarized and the public is allowed to comment.
Media Alliance’s response also goes into detail on how the city can “bridge the digital divide” including how to get communities involved in training residents to use computers and the Internet, getting local content developed for communities, etc.
Where to get the response
To read the response, click here.
A note on open source municipal wireless networks: Sascha Meinrath at CUWIN says that they have deployed open source wireless networks in Urbana and North Lawndale, Illinois. You all know the advantages of open source, open architecture solutions. I will get more info from Sascha about these networks.
If you want to know more about open source mesh networks, go to the CUWIN website.
It is interesting that several parties suggest that the city should build/own/operate a citywide fiberoptic infrastructure, thereby providing a Layer foundation.
This is precisely the approach used by the Government of the District of Columbia. The District has build an extensive OC-48 SONET multi-ring network, which provides transport for all city communications needs, including TDM and IP voice (on a private switch), wireline data communications and backhaul for the city’s private wireless networks.
San Francisco would be well advised to use the approach that DC made use of: The District used the conduit system that it was already entitled to use for its fire and police call box system. San Francisco has an operational call box system, and the use of the call box conduit system for fiberoptics should be investigated. The number one obstacle to successful deployment of fiber networks in dense urban locations is the difficulty of getting into an underground conduit system that will provide access to the demarc in all of the buildings that need to be entered.
Since I am the implementer of the DC citywide fiberoptic system, my suggestion to San Francisco is one born of hard-earned experience.