Well we should say Earthlink is closing its doors to the Muni deal it had with Philadelphia. We will go on record that we think that Muni WiFi is still a viable model. But the business arrangement that was sign on to was flawed. The presence of Philly politics did not help much either. But we report it here all the time the success stories of smaller cities are having with Muni. The concept and technology are valid.

We concluded that the private franchise model was suboptimal and that Philadelphia’s solution was problematic in a number of ways. At the time, we received good press coverage and a helluvalot of blowback from certain constituencies (who continued to assert that everything was on track).

Now that we’ve made it to May, 2008, Wireless Philadelphia is on its last legs. While many of us are still working to salvage something from this mess, reading through the New America Foundation report, it’s amazingly how eerily prescient it is. Ironically, the solution we proposed was exactly what has been on the table for the past couple months — but, as with far too many innovative ideas, this one got mired in the muck of Philly politics and, perhaps, personal egos.

Sadly, the mainstream press continue to demonstrate a remarkable ignorance by tagging this failure as a failure of “municipal wireless” — the reality is, the Philadelphia model is a corporate franchise granted to Earthlink — much of the problem stems from the fact that the municipality has no control or ownership over the network and Earthlink has demonstrated no accountability to the local community. Conde Nast’s Portfolio gets it completely wrong — heading their story, “Another Municipal Wi-Fi Plan Dies” — which is a particular shame since I’ve spoken with the article’s author, Sam Gustin, previously and he knows better.

Sad state of affairs. Now maybe a proper community-enterprise set up can occur. But ya got to get the politics under control.

Linky.

A state that will never be known fro low taxes or careful government spending may also be known for the state that killed the internet tax free zone. Most states require sales tax to be collected if the etailer has a physical presence in the state. As it is proposed, not in New York. If successful, other states will soon follow suit.

Governor David Paterson is expected to approve it. The new bill is called the “Amazon Tax” and it closes a loophole for online retailers who get sales through affiliate programs. A lobbying group representing local retailers argued that the previous exemption created an unfair advantage for online retailers.

“This is a first step—but a critical one—in our ongoing battle to level the sales tax playing field between New York retailers and the out-of-state Internet giants that have, for years, capitalized on an unfair and unintended competitive advantage driven solely by tax policy,” James Sherin, president CEO of the Retail Council New York, said in a statement reacting to the bill’s passage. (Gadgetell)

What the New York legislators are too stupid to realize is that large states like New York actually benefit from the sales tax moratorium, as sales are also made to buyers in other states by New York etailers, creating a tax free balance , and most likely a gain in New York’s case. We live in an era where the reach of government from the feds to local extends too far into our lives, along with the taxes to support it. While I contend New York has experienced a net gain in revenue from on line sales, any opportunity to de-fund the monster should not be passed on. I hope New Yorkers will see the light and cry foul before a small tax free zone disappears for them. Any complaining retailers can fix their alleged problems by developing an online presence. Failure to keep up with changes in the marketplace has nothing to do with an unfair tax advantage.

No foil hats in Augusta, they’re about to roll thier own Wifi network. The city is the right size, the business model makes sense, and the current generation of equipment makes is easier and cheaper than ever. We give them good odds for success.

Using a grant from the state of Georgia, the city will be spending more than $500,000 to build and deploy the WiFi network over a highly populated area. With most of the deployment costs covered, the city is only looking for an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to operate, market and maintain the network.

“We have reviewed wireless RFP’s from all over the country,” said Gary Hewett, Augusta’s assistant director of information technology, in a statement. “We believe that our ‘build it and they will come’ approach is a model that will work.” (Channel Web)

Community WiFi is a unique animal and not because of technology. But the politics of it require some adroit community buy-in. Lacking that any project is headed for failure –

Most media have it wrong. Municipal wireless networks across the United States didn’t stumble in 2007 - high-profile cities where deals fell apart, such as Chicago, San Francisco and Houston, were not going to finance, own or operate their respective networks. These weren’t municipal networks at all. The business model that faltered in 2007 was the “private corporate franchise” model based on the deal that Philadelphia and EarthLink agreed to in 2006. It was, in fact, the free market that failed last year - not governments in their traditional role as the builders and maintainers of critical infrastructure.

Regardless of the author’s assessment it was labeled ‘Muni Wifi’. I’ll leave it at that. Now lets repeat what IS important to a Muni Rollout –

• Get the City Planning Commission front and center on the effort. Forget the mayor or city council. The planning commission if they aren’t behind it can kill an effort faster than cheetah taking down a gazelle.
• Get the buy-in from the major corporate entities — top employer(s), Chamber of Commerce, business civic groups.
• Have the various tech head groups in the area volunteer to help with design and implementation.
• Identify a small group of normal citizens so that there is grass roots buy in.

Notice I have not included any of the carriers or folks like Earthlink. At this juncture WiFi technology is very mature. 13yo’s can have a node installed faster than it takes them to create a Facebook page. Folks like FON will gladly consult in the initial planning. But you need that Planning Director to clear the red tape for the necessary permits.

Link to full article.

PS: Think that WiFi is not mature? Consider this WiFi hotspot HOW-TO. Its a cooked technology, serve it hot and let the people get it done.

The Easter Bunny must have left some spiked candy in Sebastopol, California this week. Fear mongering protesters wanted their city’s proposed Wifi canceled over health concerns. The prostesters had better pull the light bulbs from their homes as well. The average compact fluorescent that most homes in CA have yields far more EM than a wifi router. In fact just about every AC connected appliance in the average home emits more. Perhaps going back to living in a cave or the trees would be a safer bet for those with Wifi health concerns.

Congratulations Sebastopol! You are the first city to receive our foil hat award!

reference Broadband Reports

Vermonters have a reputation for being an independent lot, and it seems they’ve had their fill of duopoly promises that were never kept, and government subsidies that deliver nothing other than higher taxes. They are taking charge of their own destiny and building a fiber network.

(March 5, 2008). The Institute for Local
Self-Reliance (ILSR) congratulates the 22 Vermont towns that have voted
to join the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network. These rural
towns have rejected dependency on outside providers in order to build
the infrastructure they need.

At least nine of the towns were unanimous in their support of the
publicly owned fiber network. Many of the other towns still registered
over 90% support for the measure.

“These towns have made the right decision,” said Christopher Mitchell,
Director of the Telecommunications as Commons Initiative at ILSR. “Small
towns across the United States have suffered from under-investment in
telecommunications and these communities realized they can solve their
broadband problems with smart public investments.”

More on Vermonters tire of waiting for monopoly broadband, decide to roll thier own

We devote a lot of space to condemning the duopoly for all of their misleading ads, contracts and terms. Governments are no different. Recently Los Angeles put a candle in a cowpie and sold it to voters as a birthday cake. Most of the LA media was too busy following Britney Spears to notice.

Los Angeles this week passed a controversial new tax that should impact city VoIP users, reports the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Fearing the need to cut police services, the city took an existing telephone user tax, reduced it from 10% to 9%, but expanded the tax to include Internet phone services.

Apart from lowering the tax 1 percentage point, it swaps in broad language that covers a wider range of telephone-like technology and allows the city to tax the routing of voice, audio, video, data or other communication information transmitted through fiber-optic coaxial cables, power lines, broadband, DSL or wireless systems.

Locals are concerned that the new tax could ultimately be expanded in an attempt to tax Internet access. The decline in landlines and the spike in VoIP use essentially allowed Los Angeles lawmakers to pass off a tax hike as a tax cut to voters on “super Tuesday”. This is how the tax on VoIP was presented to local voters (pdf): (from Braodband Reports)

If you are a large scale user of VoIP in El Lay it may be time to move. If you are a VoIP provider and you don’t want to rebuild your billing & payables systems to support this, then it’s time to quit serving El Lay. If you’re a broadband user or provider, you’re next, and no vote is needed to stick it to you. We don’t mean to beat up on Los Angeles. Their government is no more clueless than most other big cities. The more heavily you tax the productive, the more likely they are to flee.

It appears that Philadelpha may be without a Muni Wifi deployment if the rumours hold true. We noted previously that Earthlink failed to show up for a municipal meeting several months ago. The situation seems to be devolving from there –

Philadelphia’s CIO said today that he believes there is a 75% chance that EarthLink Inc. will sell or abandon its ambitious citywide Wi-Fi network operation in a year. As a result, the city is already making contingency plans in case that happens.

Terry Phillis, who has held the CIO post for the past year, said the city expects to know more within 60 days about what Atlanta-based EarthLink will do regarding its Philadelphia operation. Although a sale of the Wi-Fi network to another private network builder and operator would be preferable to having the city take control of the project, Philadelphia officials want to be prepared for either possibility, Phillis said in an interview today.

“We consider [the Wi-Fi network] an asset for the city,” Phillis said. “Our priority is to get it completed, to service the digital divide, to enhance tourism and to serve mobile city workers. But I can’t talk a lot about our plans” if Earthlink leaves.

Construction started in earnest in May, and more than 70% of the 135-square-mile network is now in place, Phillis said. EarthLink has estimated that building the network and running it for 10 years will cost $22 million.

Till the city can roll the dice and set up the scenario of non-performance on EarthLink’s part they are sorta stuck. Best scenario is EarthLink bail like they did in San Francisco. Then the city can go find a new provider. A court battle won’t get the city anywhere as far as services.

Linky.

Rural Vermonters are demanding their Third Pipe, and they are making happen without the Duopoly. These small towns will be laying fiber to bring them into the 21st century. In a Third Pipe world, you can do almost anything almost anywhere, if you have access.

Using Burlington Telecom’s municipal broadband network as a model, 22 rural Vermont towns are poised to pool their resources and launch a fiber-optic project that could go online by the end of 2009.

It’s more than a twinkle in a technician’s eye. Members of the East Central Vermont Community Fiber Network announced Wednesday that formal agreements are in the works from Windsor to Montpelier that would bring the strength of numbers — and attractive financing — to universal broadband Internet coverage. (from Burlington Free Press)

Heh, and double Heh, as Glenn Reynolds would say. ThirdPipe has gone thru the CA Broadband Task Force report. we dearly hope that they did not pay any serious money for this. For example the recommendations in overview had this to say –

Recommendation #1:
Build Out High-Speed Broadband Infrastructure to All Californians

Recommendation #2:
Develop Model Permitting Standards and Encourage Collaboration Among Providers

Recommendation #3:
Increase the Use and Adoption of Broadband and Computer Technology

Recommendation # 4:
Engage and Reward Broadband Innovation and Research

Recommendation #5:
Create a Statewide E-Health Network

Recommendation #6:
Leverage Educational Opportunities to Increase Broadband Use

Recommendation #7:
Continue State-Level and Statewide Leadership

More on The CBTF Found Lacking?