A tale of two cities: Philadelphia’s wireless network, acquired by a group of local investors, is being rolled out to parts of the city where there’s no access. More importantly, the investors are going after the municipal and business markets, two areas that EarthLink failed to focus on in its muni Wi-Fi strategy. Philly’s network sees over 100,000 users per day (correction: it’s not 100,000 users per day, but sessions per month — see Glenn Fleishman’s comment below), with more people online during the week than the weekend, suggesting people are using it for work-related reasons. The key to making the Philly network succeed is to use it for a variety of purposes: municipal, business, consumer. If they can get one or more large organizations to become anchor tenants and to pay for access, they’ve got the beginnings of a sustainable business model.
Meanwhile in Portland, the city has not done a thing to use the access points set up by MetroFi. They’re just hanging there like overripe fruit. The city wants to dismantle them even if it costs $36,000. Why not donate the network to a group of Portland geeks who can use it to test a variety of applications? Even give them a grant for the upkeep and backhaul, but use the wireless APs for test bed. The city has no plan to use the network for municipal purposes either. What a shame.
not 100,000 users per day; that’s sessions (not users) per month. Also Earthlink had installed nodes reattively densely already. Portland was never satisfied with really any of the network’s performance. Plus, the gear is now 2 years old (since manufacture) and the network design about 4 years old.
Overripe fruit should be picked and disposed of, otherwise it falls to the ground and rots.
While I lament, as a tax-payer, that Portland will likely have to foot the bill to remove MetroFi’s failed network, I’m heartened that they are taking the path of least cost and least resistance to close this chapter.
The suggestion that the network, as it stands, would work if only the city were to invest in it, is flawed. While there may indeed be potential in MetroFi’s hardware, tossing more money at the existing, failed deployment, is not the solution.
A replacement/redeployment of the MetroFi network requires an analysis of both the technical and financial problems with their model. As one of the “Portland geeks” who might be involved in taking the network over (if that were to occur), I strongly approve of the city’s decision to move forward cautiously, and not prejudge success, as you have.
The failure of these networks was largely technical and financial, not social. It is wrong to blame cities or citizens for not supporting them adequately. Indeed, if anything, many cities and individuals were too eager to support ideas and business plans that were not fully-formed.
Next generation networks, to the extent they come to be, will succeed through honest planning and hard work from dedicated, technical minds, not the feedback loop of industry boosters, blindly encouraging investment in projects they only know from press-releases.
Which brings us to the next question, how many paid subscriptions are there in place with the Philly network today ?