It appears that the debate over municipal wireless in San Francisco is far from over, despite the fact that the city negotiated a contract to operate a private-public partnership with EarthLink less than a week ago.It appears that the debate over municipal wireless in San Francisco is far from over, despite the fact that the city negotiated a contract to operate a private-public partnership with EarthLink less than a week ago.
A San Francisco budget analyst, responding to concerns of members of the city’s Board of Supervisors, has released a report evaluating the feasibility of municipally-owned¬¨‚Ćbroadband in that city. The report includes¬¨‚Ćthree recommendations on how to proceed if the city Board of Supervisors¬¨‚Ćchooses to¬¨‚Ćre-issue its RFP:
- If the Board of Supervisors “wish to investigate further the potential of a municipally owned wireless broadband network,” it should direct the city to reissue an RFP to entertain proposals allowing for any of three different business models‚Äö?Ñ?Æa municipally owned network, a non-profit owned network or a private-public partnership.
- That a feasibility study for fiber-to-the-premises be incorporated in the RFP “to the extent that is practicable.”
- That the city should “engage in greater community outreach” to enhance community understanding of the project and better achieve the city’s goal of addressing the digital divide.
Jim Baller has posted a copy of the full report on his web site. Click here to read it. 
A story in the San Francisco Chronicle¬¨‚Ćreports that¬¨‚Ćanalyst Harvey Rose was responding to supervisors who question whether the recently negotiated plan with EarthLink¬¨‚Ćwill achieve the city’s goal of providing universal high-speed/low-cost access. It quotes proponents of municipal ownership, as well as critics:
“We own the utility poles. We own the streets,” said Supervisor Jake McGoldrick, a leading critic of the EarthLink-Google proposal. “Giving it away is just not a good business model for the city.”
Chris Vein, head of the city’s Department of Telecommunications and Information Services, said building such a large wireless network is unprecedented and risky — all the more reason for private companies to take on the job.
“This is a technology that was never intended for the use that we’re putting it to,” he said Thursday. “There is a lot of technology risk. It’s tough to make this thing work.”
Am I missing something?¬¨‚ĆHasn’t San Francisco walked this road before? Certainly, the proposed contract with Earthlink needs to be examined and accepted or rejected¬¨‚Ćon its merits. But can¬¨‚Ćthe city¬¨‚Ćseriously entertain new proposals if¬¨‚Ćits officials cannot agree¬¨‚Ćon the business¬¨‚Ćmodel it¬¨‚Ćshould pursue?
I invite comments.
Posted by Carol Ellison
While factoring the costs of a Muni Network for the type of volume the City of SF will have, it’s a lot more than $10 million in hardware. It’s $3- $5million plus a year in advertising, $1 million plus in back office network gear, $1 – $2 million a year in Call center costs (more if its a US based one).
Let’s not overlook the politics here. If the City politicians as a whole can’t come together on a free network offering free internet…imagine when it comes to upgrade this network or funding for an advertising campaign….every year.
If it’s digital divide your concerned about the City is fortunate to be near some of the wealthiest companies and individuals in the world. Spend your efforts on securing charitable contributions for PC’s and training along with other programs you have currently. This way you won’t be stuck on one technology that you so heavily invested in, and stay focused on what you really want to solve!
It’s not that the City couldn’t run a Muni-WiFi network it’s just that they have far better things to focus on. Corpus Christi recognized this…
First off, you have to understand San Francisco politics. The Mayor did not include anyone other than his staff on making this decision. When he created advisory committees, it is customary for them to be eclectic with appointments including from the Board of Supervisors. The Mayor did no such thing so everyone is mad that he left them out of the loop for over a year despite a dozen public hearings asking for information that was not given.
It is about fairness. The Mayor did this deal not to provide the city with what we all really want but to appease his friends at Google and Earthlink and to create some window dressing for the digital divide which has not been the hallmark of this whole affair.
Additionally, no one is saying that the city should operate it. The city would do something like create a non-profit consortium of tech professionals to run and manage it.
We are looking outside the current box on the table here in SF. We have plenty of alternative plans that include using our own 39 miles of 220 pairs of fiber in addition to wireless. This fiber net was never mentioned and if the SF tech community didn’t make it know, it wouldn’t be up for discussion. Now, why didn’t the Mayor think of using the fiber? Why didn’t Google/Earthlink? This is very suspect to everyone except the Mayor and his staff.
There is plenty more to this story that lends itself to why the current plan and its process needs a raking over.
[...] Opposition to the plan became apparent last week when a city analyst, responding to a request from supervisors, issued a report on the financial feasibility of operating a municipal broadband network that was fully city-owned. [...]