I was interviewed a few weeks ago for this article about the troubles of Wireless Washtenaw, an ambitious plan launched in 2004 to bring wireless broadband (not just Wi-Fi) to the entire Washtenaw County in Michigan. The county is huge: it covers 720 square miles and has only 347,000 residents. Despite $2 million in private investment from a service provider called 20/20 Communications, the network has attracted only 550 users. By contrast, the article points out the success of a community wireless project called Wireless Ypsi, which I covered on MuniWireless last June 2009, which has attracted thousands of users (in June 2009, over 25,000 people had used the network). Wireless Washtenaw followed the doomed Philadelphia-SF muni WiFi model: get a private company to build an expensive network without the county’s anchor tenancy or public funding.
The main problem faced by counties which are large (in area) and sparsely populated is that the cost of deploying a high-speed broadband network is very high, but it’s difficult to get a decent return because you cannot spread it over a large number of people. This is why service providers love densely populated cities with a high proportion of middle- to upper-middle class people. In sparsely populated areas, government subsidy is often required precisely because no one can make a profit. There are other ways to deploy a network using government monies: for example, building one for the county (emergency, agricultural, public safety, public utilities) and utilizing the excess capacity to supply broadband services to people.
To my knowledge, Washtenaw did not have a detailed plan to use the wireless network (which was to be a mix of WiMAX and Wi-Fi) to county government purposes. They said they were going to use it but I did not see details in the original RFP that laid out what the various county departments needed,what they were going to use it for and how much they were going to pay for such use. The network had always been designed for business and residential use.
A lot of counties like Washtenaw are faced with the same dilemma: residents and businesses are complaining that they have no access to affordable high-speed broadband. So county officials feel pressured to get something done. But how? The federal broadband stimulus of course. However, according to another article, when Wireless Ypsi attempted to partner with Wireless Washtenaw to apply for federal broadband stimulus funds, the county rejected them in favor of 20/20 Communications, the company that has been the county’s partner for the network. Steve Pierce, the wireless Ypsi founder, is unhappy about the situation given that the wireless Ypsi network has been far more successful in attracting users. Wireless Washtenaw claims that 20/20 Communications opted not to partner with Wireless Ypsi for the federal stimulus application because of lack of time.
The ones left out in the cold throughout this drama are residents of Washtenaw County who do not have access to affordable, high-speed broadband. People do not care who is providing their broadband as long as it comes at a reasonable rate and customer service is very good. As I pointed out in the article about the tussle between Wireless Ypsi and the county, a community wireless broadband service sustains itself only if it offers good customer service. That is where many community broadband networks and also commercial service providers fail — there’s no one to scream at, no one who takes responsibility.
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