San Francisco Municipal Wireless

San Francisco Municipal Wireless is a canceled municipal wireless network that would have provided internet access to the city of San Francisco, California.

The network was originally proposed by San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004. In late 2005, the city put out a formal request for proposals, and in April 2006 it was announced that a joint proposal by Earthlink and Google had won the bid. The San Francisco Budget Analyst completed a report that analyzes possibilities for a municipal system, and critiques the proposed Google/Earthlink option. The proposal was formally scrapped by the city on 12 September 2007, citing a loss of confidence in Earthlink's financial situation. [ [http://www.muniwireless.com/article/articleview/5754/1/23/ San Francisco releases Digital Inclusion Strategy] March 3, 2007] [ [http://www.sfgov.org/site/budanalyst_page.asp?id=53280 Fiscal Feasibility Analysis of a Municipally-Owned Citywide Wireless Broadband] January 11, 2007] [ [http://www.teleclick.ca/2006/06/earthlink%e2%80%99s-citywide-wi-fi-gamble-is-a-calculated-risk/ EarthLink’s Citywide Wi-Fi Gamble is a Calculated Risk] June 6, 2006] cite web
url=http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/san-francisco-formally-ends-citywide/story.aspx?guid=%7BCCFE5024-4078-4969-B8B3-A977B076018D%7D
title=San Francisco formally ends citywide Wi-Fi effort
first=Ben
last=Charny
publisher=MarketWatch
date=2007-09-12
accessdate=2007-09-27]

Proposal

The purpose of the proposal was to provide free, wireless internet access throughout San Francisco, that anyone with a computer and wireless access device could log in to. Wireless access points would be mounted on light poles throughout the city to provide coverage.

There were two primary components to the Earthlink/Google proposal. Earthlink will install and maintain the network, and provide a higher speed (1 Mbit/s), paid connection. Google would be an anchor tenant on Earthlink's network, offering a free basic service (300 kbit/s). Earthlink's plan would have offered a two-tiered pricing scheme, with a discount for qualifying low-income residents. [ [http://www.muniwireless.com/article/articleview/5513/ Detailed analysis of EarthLink-San Francisco contract] January 27, 2007] [ [http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/dtis/tech_connect/DigitalInclusionStrategy.doc San Francisco Digital Inclusion Strategy] ] [ [http://home.feather.net/sanfrancisco Feather - EarthLink and Google - Wireless Internet in San Francisco] ] [ [http://www.muniwireless.com/article/articleview/5513 Detailed analysis of EarthLink-San Francisco contract] January 27, 2007] [ [http://www.sfgov.org/site/tech_connect_index.asp SF Tech Connect Initiative] ]

Criticisms of proposal

The San Francisco Budget Analyst's Office, has criticized the proposal, claiming that the Department of Technology and Information Services (DTIS) engaged in a biased and secretive process while crafting the proposal. DTIS's critics state that the network would provide low bandwidth, wireless-only connectivity, and that it would fail to serve its stated purpose of providing internet access to underserved communities. Studies commissioned by other San Francisco agencies show that a municipally owned, rather than privately owned option, could provide users with far superior service, at little or no cost to the end user. [ [http://www.sfgov.org/site/budanalyst_page.asp?id=53280 Fiscal Feasibility Analysis of a Municipally-Owned Citywide Wireless Broadband] January 11, 2007, see Appendix 1]

Some complaints were based on the fact that alternative networks were not considered during RFP phase. [ [http://our-city.org/campaigns/internet.html Our City] SF nonprofit campaigning for local publicly owned internet] [ [http://www.freemuni.net PublicNet SF] - SF nonprofit supporting alternative broadband solutions]

Wireless community networks

Advances in technology have made setting up wireless community networks easier and more affordable. A new startup funded by Google called Meraki provides a new generation of hardware called the Meraki Mini. Technically, Meraki is not a WISP in that the Internet connectivity is provided by individual cooperative members sharing their bandwidth rather than a central service. To jump-start the effort, Meraki initially gave away the units for free. It has become the dominant wireless community network in San Francisco. [ [http://sf.meraki.com/ Meraki San Francisco: Free the Net] ]

SFLan, a project of the Internet Archive, constructed an experimental cooperative wireless internet service provider (WISP) that grew to approximately 30 nodes, using an over-the-air backbone relying on line-of-site transmission. Noise level in the ISM bands due to proliferating and competing Wi-Fi signals made many of their long distance links (several miles) nonfunctional. The network contracted from 30 functioning nodes in February 2007 down to four by October. They are considering changing their architecture to a fiber and wireless hybrid. [ [http://www.sflan.org/ SFLan] ]

References