Chapel Hill Technology Advisory Committee

[W Raymond <chtechboard AT willraymond.org>]

Hooray Uzoma!  Great job.

Will

Terri Buckner wrote:

> Wifi signals slowly spreading across Triangle
>
> Cities ponder free wireless access
>
> B Y F I O N A   M O R G A N
>
> It's campaign season again, and there's a new issue in town: public 
> wireless Internet access. Raleigh has incorporated free wireless into 
> its Fayetteville Street plan. Cary appointed a committee to study the 
> issue and decided only to publish a list of local businesses that offer 
> the plan. The Indy has tried to keep the issue alive by including it in 
> our own candidate questionnaires. And it's also been an issue in 
> candidate forums, nowhere more than in Chapel Hill.
>
> Amid thoughtful discussion of the usual complex issues, like stormwater 
> and land use planning, candidates for Chapel Hill Town Council are 
> discussing the pros and cons of public broadband access. Will Raymond, a 
> member of the town's technology advisory board, has long been a 
> proponent. Fellow candidate Laurin Easthom made support for wireless 
> part of her platform right out of the gate. Incumbents Mark Kleinschmidt 
> and Ed Harrison are vocal supporters, as are challengers Jason Baker and 
> Bill Thorpe. Mayor Foy says he needs to know more before he can offer 
> his support.
>
> There are some basic questions to answer: Would this system be run by 
> the town as a utility, or by a private company? Who would it be designed 
> to serve? How much would it cost? How would the town pay for it?
>
> The town tech board is working on a proposal that would answer those 
> questions, which they hope to bring to the council by the start of the 
> next term. "We're handling this with the most extreme care," says tech 
> board member (and non-candidate) Uzoma Nwosu, "because we'd rather do it 
> right than do it again."
>
> Lots of other cities are offering wireless around the country--and in 
> North Carolina. The Johnston County town of Clayton, population 12,000, 
> plans to blanket the town with hotspots that would allow anyone to go 
> online for free for 30-minute increments. Right next door to Chapel 
> Hill, the town of Carrboro offers free wireless broadband access in the 
> downtown district around Weaver Street Market. But none of the 
> Triangle's free wifi offerings are designed to be residents' primary 
> Internet service.
>
> Chapel Hill has grander ambitions, Nwosu says. Any program it undertakes 
> would go way beyond the coffee shop laptop crowd on Franklin Street. The 
> board is looking at low-cost ways to offering access to every citizen by 
> blanketing neighborhoods, especially those whose residents have lower 
> incomes and are less likely to be broadband subscribers. And if you're 
> going to serve everyone in town, that means serving many 
> college-educated, tech-savvy professionals. "They have computers, 
> wifi-enabled PDAs--you name it, they're running it. Their uses and needs 
> might exceed what these other towns are offering," Nwosu says.
>
> Most exciting, he says, is the opportunity to reach across the digital 
> divide. "How can we help the school system reach out to under-served 
> neighborhoods, to get to those houses where children don't have 
> computers or Internet access plugged into the technology age? It's one 
> of my personal goals in this committee, to make that happen."
>
> The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system already has a program in place 
> that provides refurbished computers to students who otherwise wouldn't 
> have them. Ray Reitz, the school system's chief technology officer, says 
> he's excited about the prospect of a wireless program that could get 
> those kids online. "The schools are very interested in finding ways to 
> offer access to our under-served communities," he says. "We're 
> interested in working with the town in any way we can to make this happen."
>
> He knows that cost, organization and management, and to a lesser extent 
> security, need to be ironed out. Nwosu adds another to the list: 
> constantly changing technology. WiFi, the current technology, is cheap 
> but covers only small areas (10 miles at best). The next generation, 
> WiMax, is much more expensive but covers much more ground (up to 30 
> miles). Going ahead with a WiFi system now, he says, "is like us giving 
> everybody a VHS system when everyone's using DVDs."
>
> But excitement over the plan is growing, Nwosu says. "I sense urgency to 
> get it done now, so that at least the options are on the table and when 
> the new people come that it would be an item of business for them to act 
> on. We want this to happen. And I tell ya, it's only a small piece of 
> the vision of digital government that we've been pushing all along."
>
> There's another incentive to get it done quickly--it's not just 
> technology that's changing. So is the law.
>
> Several states have already passed or barely defeated initiatives to 
> prevent towns and cities from implementing plans like the one Chapel 
> Hill is looking into. In North Carolina, no such legal barrier exists so 
> far. But telecom and cable industry lobbyists have been working hard to 
> keep their lock on broadband service.
>
> The city everyone has an eye on is Philadelphia, where, after years of 
> highly successful charter projects in inner-city neighborhoods, the city 
> made a decision to implement low-cost wireless broadband access 
> continually around the city. That meant standing up to some very angry 
> telecom companies, which already have a monopoly in phone and cable 
> service in Philly. Earthlink is expected to win the Philly contract, and 
> subscriptions will cost $20 per month, half that for low-income 
> residents, with continuous coverage throughout the city.
>
> In San Francisco, Google wants to provide a citywide wireless broadband 
> system that would challenge cable and telecom monopolies there. 
> Municipal wireless is a way for new players to inject some real 
> competition into the otherwise monopolized world of telecom services.
>
> At the federal level, there are a few bills floating around, some good 
> and some bad. Rep. Pete Sessions, a Republican from Texas (naturally) 
> and former telecom executive (yep), is sponsoring a revision to the 1996 
> Telecommunications Act that, among other things, would prohibit state 
> and local governments from providing Internet service if a private 
> provider already does. Meanwhile, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Frank 
> Lautenberg (D-N.J.) have introduced the Community Broadband Act of 2005, 
> a good bill that would override any state laws restricting municipal 
> broadband. "This is the best bill to support at the federal level," says 
> Craig Aaron of Free Press, a media reform activist group. "It's very 
> clear-cut. It would free up local communities to figure out what's best 
> for themselves." (Oddly, McCain has also backed the Sessions bill; 
> presumably there's enough in it he likes that he's willing to hold his 
> nose and deal with the muni issue in a separate piece of legislation. 
> Just can't figure that guy out.)
>
> If you like that idea, call Liddy Dole (202-224-6342) and Richard Burr 
> (202-224-3154) and ask them to back S. 1294, the Community Broadband 
> Act. Quick, before Verizon gets to them.
>
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