MuniWireless

A Happy New Year to everyone! Although most of us would rather forget 2008 and consign it to the darkest corners of human memory, I’d like to take one last look at the most significant Muniwireless stories of the year. From the increasing demand for Wi-Fi to the exciting launch of WiMAX in the US (although not so exciting launch in Amsterdam), the much-awaited release of the 3G iPhone to the revival of intelligently planned municipal wireless broadband networks, there’s a lot to celebrate about 2008.

(1) Wi-Fi use grows in popularity as more people buy iPhones and other Wi-Fi enabled portable devices.

No doubt about it, the iPhone has been THE gadget launch of the year. Analysts who said the iPhone would be a catastrophic failure sound like the financial analysts on Wall Street who proclaimed that the US economy was fundamentally sound.

When Apple released the 3G iPhone in the US and other countries, people responded by buying it in massive numbers. Because of the iPhone’s screen and interface, people do on the iPhone what they are used to doing on their laptops: they visit websites such as Google Maps, watch video, perform Google searches, update their Twitter feeds, visit social networking sites, waste enormous amounts of time reading blogs, send and receive email, all of which are data-intensive, putting tremendous pressure on AT&T’s 3G network. It’s not surprising that people complained about network outages, slow download and upload speeds, and poor service on the AT&T 3G network. The solution for many iPhone users was to find a Wi-Fi network and get on it quickly.

AT&T must have realized that getting people to use Wi-Fi benefits them as well (i.e. no pesky fights with city councils on putting up yet another 3G mast that will fry our brains). So it began offering free Wi-Fi at Starbucks cafes (which you still won’t get me to visit because the coffee tastes like watery sludge — thank heavens, there’s Peets which is slightly better, but if you are an espresso fanatic, there are better cafes in San Francisco and Silicon Valley).

Here are the stories from 2008 about the increasing popularity of Wi-Fi:

Smartphone users love WiFi: 42% of iPhone requests are made from Wi-Fi

BT WiFi traffic doubles in one year

Icomera reports 272 percent increase in Wi-Fi use on public transport

Business use of WiFi hotspots grows by 46%

Europe leads global WiFi hotspots growth; free WiFi model gaining ground

(2) EarthLink shuts down high-profile Philadelphia network. MetroFi dies. What went wrong?

This story was the media darling of the year. There’s nothing like hyping a story in one year only to flush it down the toilet the next – makes for a lucrative news cycle especially in a business that’s dying faster than the trees they kill to print the news.

Although there were very serious problems with these high-profile network deployments, the reality is that the networks in Philadelphia and Portland were not really launched. Neither MetroFi nor EarthLink made a big marketing push to get subscribers; neither company’s networks were in service for a year or more for us to evaluate if they were truly popular and if not, what went wrong. The death of EarthLink’s CEO, who promoted municipal Wi-Fi, plus the company’s failed investment in Helio (incidentally, NOT a muni Wi-Fi product, but rather the old-fashioned cellular business), resulted in severe cost-cutting that led to massive layoffs at the company. EarthLink is back where it was – in good old dial-up – which continues to thrive in the United States because Americans are waiting for Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand and the miracle of the free market to bring high-speed (i.e. fiber) broadband service.

EarthLink notifies subscribers of shutdown

MetroFi also canceled their ambitious plans to unwire Portland, Oregon and a number of other cities

For a perspective on what went wrong with these citywide Wi-Fi plans:

What went wrong with muni WiFi and what cities can do now (by Karl Edwards)

Philadelphia network flop points to failure of corporate franchise model (by Sascha Meinrath)

Despite the gloom and doom, investors in Philadelphia have organized the creatively named Network Acquisition Company (a temporary name, we have been assured) to take over the EarthLink network. Let’s see if they can do anything to bring fast Wi-Fi connectivity in those places in Philadelphia where it makes sense to have it. One little problem: it’s difficult to raise money. The capital and bond markets are, despite Bernanke’s most fervent wishes, still very tight.

(3) But wait a minute! There are a number of successful municipal wireless broadband projects.

After printing endless stories about the death of muni Wi-Fi, the mainstream press got bored and started running stories again about Angelina Jolie’s tiff with Jennifer Aniston. Then, they got bored with that and woke up to discover that there are municipal wireless networks up and running that do all the fancy things a network should do such as offering Wi-Fi access to residents, monitoring sewage and water treatment plants, reading electricity and water meters, changing traffic signal lights, creepily watching their residents’ movements via wireless video surveillance cameras (YouTube meets City Hall meets Big Brother), and forecasting the future of the S&P 500 (just kidding about the last one). The Wall Street Journal even did a story called A Second Look at Citywide Wi-Fi. I was interviewed for the accompanying podcast (which I couldn’t bear to listen to because I hate hearing myself recorded).

Here are a few cities that use their networks for municipal applications (e.g. public safety and meter reading). They pay for part or all of the costs of deploying and maintaining the network and provide public Wi-Fi access where it makes sense. In many cases, the cities own fiber (this is the key to having high-capacity wireless networks that won’t piss off users when they’re trying to do video, chat, email and Google map searches at the same time) and are the local public utility. For cities that have given away their public infrastructure to private telecom and utility companies, what can I say? Sometime in the future your blind faith in “private enterprise” may be rewarded.

Ponca City Oklahoma: wireless automated meter reading, free WiFi

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: largest Wi-Fi public safety network in the world

Rock Hill SC: wireless meter reading, energy management, public safety, free WiFi

Minneapolis, Minnesota: public access, public safety

Riverside, California: public access, public safety, traffic management

McAllen, Texas: wireless video surveillance

Dallas, Texas: wireless video surveillance

Reading, Pennsylvania: wireless video surveillance

Southlake, Texas: wireless video surveillance

Temple and Washington, Georgia: wireless video surveillance

Granbury, Texas: wireless video surveillance

Gangneung, South Korea: public safety, free Wi-Fi

Craven County, North Carolina: education

There are other cities that have rolled out networks and I will be releasing an updated (and long overdue) report of cities and counties that have city and countywide wireless broadband networks.

(4) So what went wrong with Philadelphia, Portland and all those other cities where we were supposed to have Wi-Fi everywhere? Here are two commentaries:

What went wrong with muni WiFi and what cities can do now (by Karl Edwards)

Philadelphia network flop points to failure of corporate franchise model (by Sascha Meinrath)

(5) Increased competition in European broadband markets result in lower prices, more choice for consumers.

Enough of the bad news. Here’s something to cheer about. While the US doesn’t seem to have an antitrust department going after anti-competitive telecom practices (the current administration believes that same glorious unregulated “free” markets that brought us unbelievable prosperity, rising house prices, Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and the implosion of the banking industry will take care the broadband competition problem), the Europeans have been busy ensuring that there is competition in the broadband and mobile wireless markets by going after their telecom incumbents and the sleazy practices that mobile operators around the world do best.

A French competition court just banned Apple’s exclusive deal with French operator, Orange, paving the way for other operators and large mobile phone resellers such as Phone House to cobble together amazing deals for French consumers. Where else can you get a 19 EUR 3G iPhone (with 2-year contract from Bouygues Telecom)? Unlike American consumers, the French have a choice and they can also purchase legally the iPhone unlocked (unsubsidized) for 730 EUR.

The French telecom regulator ARCEP has also done a great job in forcing telecommunications companies to share their networks and fiber ducts into apartment buildings. The result is that more French residents have access to real broadband (i.e. FTTH). ARCEP has forced mobile operators to lower call termination fees, another decision that will result in lower mobile phone bills for consumers. France has seen an overall 16% growth in DSL subscriptions as a result of ARCEP’s aggressive stand on encouraging competition.

Meanwhile, Ofcom, the UK telecom regulator, reports that broadband prices have been falling steadily in Europe and have gone after dodgy practices of Internet service providers: an ISP code of conduct! You mean, no more lying about “up to 1 trillion megabits per second for only £10 per month”?

(6) Clearwire/Sprint WiMAX officially launches in the United States.

I’ve been waiting for this and now it’s here. Real live WiMAX service to help us meet our high-speed on-the-go data needs. If WiMAX service from Clearwire and Sprint become truly ubiquitous and very fast — faster than 3G and its spawn — I’ll be the first to bring out a glass of bubbly and run out to buy the latest WiMAX portable device. There are a number of WiMAX gadgets that have come out: WiMAX/3G cards, Nokia N810 WiMAX Tablet, Lenovo laptops, Asus laptops, and HTC’s WiMAX handset. Still wondering what’s in it for you? Read our Consumer Guide to WiMAX.

What’s the biggest threat to WiMAX in the US? Hint: it’s not LTE

Clearwire business pricing emerges

Clearwire Portland launch: 6 January 2009

Clearwire CEO says full steam ahead with WiMAX

Clearwire’s 100-day agenda

**But one thing has been bugging me: why have Clearwire and Sprint been allowed to merge their WiMAX businesses? I thought the whole idea behind awarding two licenses was to create two competitors so that we would have choice. Isn’t there enough demand for WiMAX to support two companies?

(7) WiMAX deployments around the world gather steam, but most are still offering only fixed service (i.e. you need a WiMAX modem). Mobile or nomadic service is rare.

I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about this. I’ve spent endless hours putting together a Google map of where one can find mobile WiMAX service. I visited WiMAX websites and emailed people who know a lot about WiMAX network deployments. The idea is to land in a city, pull out a WiMAX device like a laptop (or a USB dongle) and just log onto the local WiMAX network. No big fat modem necessary! I created the map so that travelers like me could easily find and pay for WiMAX service on a daily or weekly basis. I want to avoid roaming charges.

In the process of putting together this WiMAX map, I encountered three things:

• the lists and descriptions of WiMAX deployments around the world (on other WiMAX websites) are grossly inaccurate and going to the well-known industry alliances does not help. You have to check each network;
• a number of people took me to task for using the word “mobile” because on most of these networks, you can’t really zip down a highway at 120 kph and remain connected, doing all the things the people do on wireless networks (talking, browsing websites), so they’ve asked me to use the word “nomadic”; and
• several people told me I was a complete idiot because I could just go to a cafe in any particular city and get free Wi-Fi service.

If you want to see the results of hours of checking, rechecking, arguing with WiMAX providers (who insist that I hire a butler to walk behind me dragging around a large WiMAX modem so that I could enjoy “mobile” WiMAX service) go to:

Google map of mobile/nomadic WiMAX service around the world

Details about how I put together the WiMax map (a painful exercise)

There is one shining example of a WiMAX network where you can buy daily access for 6 EUR a day:

Amsterdam WiMAX provider, WorldMax, increases download speed to 5 Mbps

The only problem that one reviewer encountered with the service is that he could not get the signal indoors. It works well outdoors but I would not recommend this in the cold wintry months when you should be skating instead. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to get an indoor signal — could it be that WorldMax Amsterdam uses 3.65 GHz for the service? Nevertheless, the launch of WiMAX in Amsterdam went largely unnoticed, except in tech circles. Most people don’t care: they’ve got very high speed Internet access at home and in the office; free Wi-Fi in cafes and other places where they congregate; and relatively fast HSDPA service on their mobile phones (and laptops, if they have an HSDPA card) for when they’re in cars, trains, buses, stores, etc.

(8) Most commented upon articles:

Silicon Valley’s shameful secret: lousy broadband

Muni WiMAX global map of cities with mobile WiMAX service

Is Meraki as inexpensive and open-source as it seems?

MetroFi selling muni WiFi networks in Portland and other cities

Free WiFi project in Sydney canceled (for a rousing debate on the difference between infrastructure and service)

(9) Muniwireless launches new website, WiMAX coverage, Linked In Group

I launched the new website in November 2008. The most significant change is the addition of a WiMAX section. Paul Kapustka, founder of Sidecut Reports, has joined MuniWireless as the editor of the new WiMax section. I also changed the fonts to make the articles easier to read (I’m getting older and my eyes are not what they used to be). Other changes: narrowed down the list of categories, improved site navigation.

Muniwireless launches new website and WiMAX coverage

I have created a MuniWireless / Muni WiMAX Linked In Group and after only six weeks, we have 300 members. The goal of the group is networking and discussions. Please join us:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1347277

I am sending out the Muniwireless newsletter again so sign up now to receive it if you have not done so:

http://www.muniwireless.com/subscribe/

(10) Sidecut Reports has released a new updated version of their WiMax report.

The updated report includes a comprehensive study of the “new” Clearwire WiMax deal and its $3.2 billion of investment from a group that includes Google, Comcast, Intel and Time Warner Cable.

Game On, WiMax! Why the ‘New’ Clearwire gives WiMax its best chance at success in the U.S. marketplace

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UP NEXT: What’s in store for us in 2009 (apart from a global recession, possible Depression, deflation, stagflation, severe climate change, rising oceans, probability of large asteroid hitting the Earth)

Related posts:

1. Muniwireless newsletter 8 Jan 2009: top stories of 2008; Clearwire launches in Portland
2. AT&T to iPhone users: you’ve got free Wi-Fi!
3. Most important industry stories of 2007