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The battle for a Publc Internet (PI): San Francisco activist groups rally against Google/Earthlink "monopoly" deal for free WiFi

Several San Francisco activist groups and non-profit internet companies have joined together to protest a proposed deal between the city and a Google/Earthlink partnership to provide free WiFi.

Called the Public Net San Francisco coalition, the group issued a statement Friday insisting that the city government kill a multi-million dollar pending deal with Google and Earthlink. Instead, the coalition says the city's existing high speed fiber optic network has plenty of spare capacity to support a high-speed Internet network open to every resident regardless of income.

Bruce Wolfe of the San Francisco People's Organization, said that the proposed Google/Earthlink free WiFi network would be too slow to support many common Internet uses, such as telephony and online video. It would leave San Francisco residents "in the digital dust."

Eric Brooks, with the activist group Our City, criticized San Francisco's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services (DTIS) for rushing through a contract process with little public input.

"After nearly a century of San Franciscans suffering rip-offs and incredibly bad service under the monopoly control of our public utilities by corporations like PG&E, Comcast, and AT&T, it amazes me that DTIS can stand there with a straight face and try to convince us that we should let a multinational corporate partnership own and control our new public communications system," said Mr Brooks.

The city already has much of the infrastructure in place to build a WiFi network as much as 100 times faster than the snail-paced Google/Earthlink WiFi technology. It's a "clunker" said Tim Pozar with United Layer, a free Internet services provider. "If we go for municipal ownership of a system that makes use of all the City's public assets, including the high speed ring of fiber optic cable lying only half used right under our feet, we can get a vastly superior, and 10 to 100 times faster system."

The city's high speed fiber-optic network is already people owned claimed Ralf Muehlen, of the non-profit SFLan. "We already paid for the City's fiber with our taxes, we should now put it to good use."

Foremski's Take: The Google/Earthlink deal with San Francisco could potentially establish a model for municipalities across the US and in other countries. It would be the start of a massive new market for giant Internet companies such as Google and Earthlink.

It would put them in the forefront of a race with competitors for the next big market opportunity: the gold rush to monetise local markets. (Please continue in news analysis...)

Links:

http://Public.FreeMuni.Net is the central location for all things San Francisco Broadband.

http://www.our-city.org"
http://www.sfpeople.org"
http://www.sflan.org"

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Here is the full statement from Public Net San Francisco:

Continue reading "The battle for a Publc Internet (PI): San Francisco activist groups rally against Google/Earthlink "monopoly" deal for free WiFi" »

Posted by Tom Foremski on January 27, 2007 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As San Francisco ponders its Public Internet, FON gives away 10,000 routers

Public Internet San Francisco holds the first of a series of public hearings at City Hall on the municipal Wi-Fi Google/Earthlink Project: Wednesday Feb 7 at 3pm City Hall, Board Chamber, room 250, Budget and Finance Committee.

First District Supervisor Jake McGoldrick has sponsored a resolution on the project.

San Francisco Budget Analyst report:

"Fiscal Feasibility Analysis of a Municipally-Owned Citywide Wireless Broadband Network."

San Francisco Examiner has an editorial by on the SF Wi-Fi deal by Supervisor McGoldrick saying it should not be rushed through.

S.F. should not rush free Wi-Fi deal

When The City selects one company to take over our public assets to provide service, the only guarantee is that the provider will dictate the quality and cost of service. The consumers lose. Government loses its governance. And taxpayers are subsidizing EarthLink/Google’s businesses by paying for its infrastructure while being charged for their services. EarthLink/Google should not reap the benefits of the public’s use without giving much in return.

. . .

Another way to offer public Internet access is through FON, a company that sells routers that have a public and private WiFi channels. Users share their WiFi connection with anybody within range while keeping a secure private connection.

To celebrate its one year birthday FON is giving away 10,000 WiFi routers for free in the US. FON is backed by Google, Skype, Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures and has more than 250,000 users in 140 countries.

Please see SVW:

The battle for the last-mile heats up as GOOG, Skype and VCs fund startup FON

. . .

Randall Stross a professor of business at San Jose State University wrote an interesting article in the New York Times about WiFi in municipal applications. Using street lamps to perch WiFi transmitters can cost $75,000 to $125,000 per square mile.

An alternative comes from Meraki Networks, in Mountain View, CA:

...rather than starting from outside the house and trying to send signals in, Meraki starts from the inside and sends signals out, to the neighbors.
Some of those neighbors will also have Meraki boxes that serve as repeaters, relaying the signal still farther to more neighbors. The company equips its boxes with software that maintains a “mesh network,” which dynamically reroutes signals as boxes are added or unplugged, and as environmental conditions that affect network performance fluctuate moment to moment.

SF WiFi: NY Times - Wifi without towers

. . .

From October 5, 2005:

Silicon Valley Watcher proposes free WiFi solution for most of San Francisco. . . and it could be done this afternoon!

Silicon Valley Watcher proposes free WiFi solution for most of San Francisco
Free Wi-Fi.jpg . . . and it could be done this afternoon! We just need to persuade people in SF with a wireless router to let it all hang out.

Posted by Tom Foremski on February 6, 2007 2:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

San Francisco: GOOG/Earthlink WiFi project runs into ACLU concerns

The San Francisco WiFi deal with Google and Earthlink has run into more problems: (Hat tip Kimo Crossman)

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/aclu-puts-heat-on-earthlink-and-google-in-san-fran/2007-02-08

ACLU puts heat on Earthlink and Google in San Fran

February 8, 2007 · In: Wi-Fi | Wireless Regulation
As if Earthlink and Google aren't getting enough heat over their muni-WiFi project in San Francisco. The ACLU of Northern California told the city's Board of Supervisors that its contract with Earthlink and Google doesn't have enough privacy and speech protections when it comes to the information Earthlink and Google will collect and share about end users. The contract doesn't have any limits on what kind of information Earthlink will collect, while the terms for Google call for requiring "minimal" information on login without defining what minimal means. The ACLU also said customers should be able to opt in or out of any service that collects data on what they look at on the Internet, and no provisions exist.
For more about the ACLU's concerns in San Francisco:
- read this article from InfoWorld

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More here from WebProNews, and here from Light Reading.

http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_strategy/more_trouble_ahead_for_googles_sf_wifi_plan.html

Posted by Tom Foremski on February 10, 2007 7:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

GOOGlink WiFi signal could crowd out other WiFis

Here is an interesting wrinkle in the battle over the Public Internet (PI) in San Francisco. The proposed Google/Earthlink "free" WiFi could take up all the available bandwidth on the WiFi radio frequency.

Here is Tim Redmond from Politics Another problem with Googlink Wifi:

Sarah Phelan gets into it here. Sasha puts it this way:
The network will be exclusive. Although the network is not an explicit monopoly, it will essentially take up all the bandwidth at the frequency wi-fi uses, so it would be difficult or impossible to have a competing network without using a completely different (and likely more expensive) technology.
Think about this for a second. San Francisco is full of all sorts of little (and not-so-little) wi-fi networks. SFLAN, for example, is building a free wifi service with a rooftop-to-rooftop backbone. Lots of people have smaller wi-fi setups that let them, for example, sit out in their backyards with a laptop and check their email. And if Googlink puts up its private wi-fi cloud, all of those other networks will run into interference.
I'm not an expert on the technical details here, but Tim Pozar, who runs United Layer, is, and here's how he explaned it to me:
"The type of spectrum we're using is interference-prone. There's just not that much space on the spectrum. The number of access points that are required [to set up citywide wi-fi] could mean one every block. That's a lot of radio frequency energy. It will significantly impact others who are trying to use that same part of the spectrum."

Once a Googlink system is up, competitors couldn't come in because there would be too much interference between WiFi networks.

The same problem would be caused by a San Francisco owned and operated WiFi network which would cost about $20m to build with annual operating costs of $1m. But better to have a public "monopoly" than a private one.

Also, having one municipal network would mean a level playing field for the many online service providers. A level playing field is something which GOOG lobbyists have argued for in Washington.

Posted by Tom Foremski on February 14, 2007 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Newswatch 1.28.08: Qtrax turns out to be a hoax

Labels expose Qtrax claim as hoax
[Reuters] The world's biggest music companies, including Warner Music Group Corp and Sony BMG, denied that they have agreed to license songs for a free download service that was launched by Qtrax on Monday. Qtrax claimed that it had deals with the major labels representing about 75 percent of all music sales, to let users download songs for free in a new service to be supported by advertising revenue.

Cisco unveils data center networking platform
[PCW] On Monday, the company is set to unveil a data-center networking platform that eventually could take the place of both the Ethernet switches that link servers as well as the Fibre Channel devices that form storage networks. The Nexus series is designed both to meet exploding demands for bandwidth and energy efficiency within data centers and to simplify the jobs of IT administrators. In the process, it could help give Cisco the central role it seeks in IT infrastructure.

Nokia buys Trolltech
[BizWeek] Mobile telephone giant Nokia Corp. on Monday announced a deal to take over Oslo software company Trolltech ASA with a cash offer that values the Norwegian company at nearly 844 million kroner (US$153 million; euro105 million).

AMD bests Nvidia with two-chip graphics board
[Newsfactor] "It's a kick-ass card," agreed Roger Kay, president of market intelligence firm Endpoint Technologies. "It probably gives them high-end bragging rights," he added in a telephone interview. While Nvidia still has a commanding lead in sales volume, "it's important for the whole company for ATI to take the performance crown -- at least temporarily."

PayPal buys Israeli fraud-detection company
[Mercury] Fraud Sciences' risk tools will be integrated with PayPal's fraud management system, PayPal President Scott Thompson said. The move "should allow us to be even more effective in protecting eBay and PayPal's hundreds of millions of customers around the world," he said.

Livescribe offers computerized pen

[PCMag] Livescribe on Monday unveiled its Pulse smart pen, a computer within a pen that uploads handwriting and audio files onto personal computers, or plays back handwritten notes in an audio format by tapping on the text. Livescribe is offering two Pulse models: a version with 1 Gbyte of storage for $149 and a 2-GB version for $199. The 1-GB version holds over 100 hours of audio and 16,000 pages of notes.

Posted by Richard Koman on January 28, 2008 2:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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Former Financial Times journalist Tom Foremski and team reporting on the business of technology and media . Silicon Valley is becoming a Tech Media Valley.

Public Internet (PI) Archives

January 27, 2007

The battle for a Publc Internet (PI): San Francisco activist groups rally against Google/Earthlink "monopoly" deal for free WiFi

February 6, 2007

As San Francisco ponders its Public Internet, FON gives away 10,000 routers

Silicon Valley Watcher proposes free WiFi solution for most of San Francisco. . . and it could be done this afternoon!

February 10, 2007

San Francisco: GOOG/Earthlink WiFi project runs into ACLU concerns

The San Francisco WiFi deal with Google and Earthlink has run into more problems: (Hat tip Kimo Crossman)

http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/aclu-puts-heat-on-earthlink-and-google-in-san-fran/2007-02-08

ACLU puts heat on Earthlink and Google in San Fran

February 14, 2007

GOOGlink WiFi signal could crowd out other WiFis

January 28, 2008

Newswatch 1.28.08: Qtrax turns out to be a hoax

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