Weigh in on wi-fi

"While your assumption is that verizon and timewarner are suing cities to protect the consumer?"

Where/when did I say that?

The point to me is that only some citizens can pay for wifi and the computer that they need. Even if computers are provided from various sources, WiFi could end up being another divide in our community. And some just don't have an exta few hundred to give, especially if taxes and fees continue to rise faster than their incomes.

"This would need a study and decide whether UNC could be brought onboard." Maybe this should be the platform - a willingness to examine the issue and possible solutions.

I remember the last election where a successful candidate said that it was the job of the media and citizens to ask the right questions of candidate; I am asking questions that seem pretty easy to answer, especially if a candidate wants to make this part of their platform

For what its worth, at their June 27 meeting, the CH Town Council tasked the IT Advisory Committee with the responsibility of conducting a feasibility study. That process is underway and will result in a cost analysis for various models of services as well as citizen input on their interest in pursuing the various models. UNC has a representative on the steering committee as does the school system, Empowerment, DEDC and the Chamber of Commerce. We have only had one meeting though so we don't have anything concrete to share.

actually, low end computers get thrown away. You can have wireless cards in desktop models. You DO NOT NEED A LAPTOP for wireless access per se.

The cost of a barebones desktop terminal with a wireless card will be minimal compared to asking someone to buy a computer AND pay time warner a 50$ a month fee.

UNC throws away color cathode ray tube type monitors or whatever they are called ... they are literally thrown in the trash.

It really comes down to do you think we should do something so that no child in the school district goes home to a house without internet access or should we explore creative futuristic approaches to make chapel hill a better place to be. I think the school has a program to give kids computers already.

We can disband the police department and fire department and trash pick up. Stop funding the public library (one of the most used in the state and one of the only ones paid for by a town and not county) and stop preserving green space through bonds and give everyone their taxes back.
We can pay no Taxes if we want no services. I view paying for essential services like internet access no different than paying taxes for the library, the schools, the police or the fire. They are services I value and will pay for.

But I'd suspect that chapel hill homes would stop appreciating as they have if we took the bare bones don't invest in the future approach. I'm sure in your personal life you paid more for something to invest for long term thinking (I'd hope).

Orange county homes have increased FIVE TIMES the value compared to Durham and Wake County...

http://www.chapelhillnews.com/our_town/realestate/story/2794795p-9235611...

I'd suspect places with the lowest tax rates are probably not necessarily the best places to live. There is a lot of negativity coming from a certain camp and I hope Chapel Hill residents are smart enough to realize being unpleasant and dismissive without actually saying what a candidate will do - in a positive sense - is not a platform either. We all can say we pay to much in taxes but how will you cut them and keep providing services while investing for the future?

Actually, if not for building a Town operations center from scratch we would have had a tax cut this year.

You have a lot of negativity Mr. Black but no solutions. I've heard candidates say they supported more expensive healthcare for town employees and higher salaries than were approved yet offer no way to pay for that either... The money saved on a 1 TIME EXPENSE on art - for a 1 time event, building a town operations center - is not the same as re-occurring expenses for salaries and healthcare that go on forever. It makes you wonder if someone understands municipal budgeting.

Smart people IMHO would take home appreciation at 5 times the rate of surrounding communities to pay taxes that aren't that different from our neighbors who don't get the appreciation in home value we do.

That is why 15% inclusionary affordable housing is so necesssary because our homes go up so much.

maybe someone can post the town (not school tax) rates for:
Chapel HIll
Carrboro
Raleigh
Durham
HIllsborough

you may be surprised Mr. Black, I know we are lower than carroboro and basically the same as Durham and Hillsborough. And guess what,
these cities don't pay to run their library - it comes from the county commissioners nor do these cities purchase and preserve green space.

I will disengage with you "helena," as you read much too much into what I've written. I've never mentioned any corporations, laptops, high taxes (I commented on taxes and fees continuing to rise faster than incomes), or other things that you want to attribute to me, so have your argument with someone esle.

And by the way, the county commissioners don't pay to run county libraries, taxpayers do. In CH we pay county and city taxes and get money for our library from both tax pots, and private, federal and state sources too.

In Durham - the library is paid for solely from the county tax not the durham city tax, which is different than chapel hill.

Most library funds come from local property taxes.. ~90% in NC

My point is that people complain about the taxes but they seem to forget that chapel hill's TOWN TAX RATE - the one the TOWN COUNCIL controls - is no worse than the city of Durham, Hillsborough and is better than Carrboro.

The media and some citizens blame the Town Council for the school tax and the county tax which is out of the TOWN COUNCIL's control.

The point about the library is that our Town - chapel hill - pays for services like libraries - that most other Towns in our fair state do not pay for at all!

So when the media starts saying taxes are high in Chapel Hill you never here them say but guess what the town of chapel hill pays for PART of their own library, purchasing green space, nor do you hear the media say that in the last year your property values in chapel hill have gone up 5 times more than Wake or Durham county.

No one wants to pay taxes, and no candidate has said vote for me and I'll waste your money.

I'm hoping some of the media Urchins hanging around might start to educate the public better on those stubborn details and quite frankly it's almost impossible to REALLY compare tax rates because not only are the services provided by towns really different but everyone hides things in fees in addition to the tax rate.

Today's New York Times Magazine has an article on WiFi helping out in New Orleans and in Chicago and discusses Community Mesh Networks of WiFi as a disaster resilliant means of communications. The phrase "The cost is laughably small" appears.

Freepress has an article from the Washington Post saying something similar:

http://www.freepress.net/news/11445
"Sky Dayton, who founded Internet provider EarthLink Inc. and more recently has focused on wireless ventures, said the area need not bother reconnecting all its downed lines and should instead rely on existing cellular networks and additional systems known as WiFi and WiMax, which provide high-speed Internet access.

Dayton said the cost of such a network would be relatively low — “a rounding error in the context of rebuilding a city.” A series of small, electronic devices on top of buildings or lampposts and take signals from central towers and push them around to houses, offices or other “hot spots.”

Such networks can also deliver Internet-based telephone service. "

Which is why developing countries would do well to leapfrog the infrastructure paradigm of the past century. With the ability to plan and build telecommunications capabilities equal to ours for an investment of pennies on the dollar of what we paid, emerging markets can compete.

The global village is here to stay.

Now if we could convince folks to hold off on waging wars long enough for profound interconnectivity to be achieved, we could create relationships that would make wars unnecessary and irrelevant.

David,
Not just third-world countries, you can look at my birthplace. I notice they place the average family income at $17,000 - I am pretty sure that puts us low on the food chain. But, one man with a vision and a good ability to write grants has made the entire 100 square mile school system wireless, which locals have been able to buy access to for $10 a month. My parents went from a 1990s-era telephone connection to a wireless connection. The educational value is immense, as my young niece and nephew live and learn on the internet for school and for play. In addition, every child now has computer access at school for research and email (trust me I get a dozen How R U? emails a day!).

It's not just the third-world countries, it's the third-world counties as well.

Great point, Robert!

The fact is that we take wireless high speed Internet for granted here in Carrboro, where access to information of all forms is both cheap and plentiful. Yet, even here and in other information hotspots, nothing compares to electronic connectivity. It has opened my world to ideas I never knew even existed.

And I would have considered myself pretty connected before 1994.

In the military we call it a "force multiplier" effect.

I call it dumb luck that I was born in the best time to see the early evolution of the PC, the Internet, and the hydrogen fuel cell, among other technological wonders. I live in a state of constant awe.

Yet, I remain grounded by the pressing problems of today. I hope we don't forget the bottom line.

The welfare of all people.

Yes Paul, Wi-Fi is great and we are all in debt to that wonderful actress Hedy Lamarr for her significant contribution.

Note that the entire “laughably small” paragraph says:

“The cost is laughably small. City engineers could build a mesh using parts on sale at any Circuit City. (Smith's neighborhood mesh in Chicago cost $350 per node, and he figures it could take only $650 apiece to equip every node with an emergency battery.) Alternatively, a city could simply hire a mesh-networking company like Tropos Networks, which estimates a cost of $70,000 to cover a square mile with DSL-speed connections. These numbers are so low that they are virtually rounding errors in any city's budget.”

It appears that one is branded as negative for asking questions about costs and priorities before the fact. Other than Will Raymond, proponents have yet to expound on their ideas and plans. During the campaign, is it wrong to expect to hear a candidate say, “Yes, this should be a community priority and if options like a private corporation can't be worked out, it should be a public expenditure because it's just that important. Therefore if it means we have to raise taxes to accomplish this, I'm for it.”

It always seems that the “table change” of $70,000 to cover a square mile" adds up after a while, and as night follows day, taxes have to go up to afford all of these “laughably small” costs.

Also, yesterday's CHN (Committee exploring wi-fi network) quoted Terri Buckner on this topic.

PS: For those interested, the Chapel Hill Public Library is one of nine municipal libraries (High Point is the largest, Hickory second and Chapel Hill third). Our CHPL funding is approximately 86% local and Orange County (property taxes) and 14% State, Federal and private dollars.

We also have 24 Internet computers available for public use. Obviously, they don't meet the needs of our community. We had a bond that was overwhelmingly approved by the voters to expand the library, and more space should allow us to add more public access computers. That still won't solve this community's needs.

Fred,

I understand your desire to have candidates be concrete in their advocacy for wifi, but the deeper I get into this issue, the more complicated I'm finding it to be. Given this complexity, I don't think it is reasonable to expect anyone to propose a funding strategy other than broad formulas, such as private public partnerships or Will's proposed non-profit. Even with that, we need to all work from a common understanding of what features we want in a system--without that commonality any funding strategies proposed by candidates will not be comparable.

From my perspective, what we most need is political will (no pun intended) from our elected officials and town staff. In many communities, there is a specific driver motivating the first introduction of a wireless/municipal network. Most often it appears that the drivers that improve or reduce the cost of Town services, such as transit, police or EMS. From what I can tell, the town departments in Chapel Hill are moving forward independently (you may recall the CH News article about the transit authorities desire to use satellite links at bus stops to update route status). In Carrboro, the wireless network is used exclusively for customer service although I know there is a desire to make it more robust at some time in the future.

Terri-- that is why I said Fred Black is full of negativity..

Of course ANY town initiative takes time and FULL public input.
There are usually three or four town council meetings on whether or not A SINGLE speed bump goes on a residential street. Anything chapel hill does takes lots of time, lots of exploring and lots of public input. Fred would have a chance to go before town council and cry out about his tax increases.

Something like wi-fi or wi-max would not happen overnight and certainly the costs could be controlled by rolling out service to one area at a time. IT DOES NOT need to be done all at once. How much money is spent by the town council on xeroxing fees for town council agendas?? The point there are areas to save money in order to invest in things the citizens want.

If we calculate that 20,000 homes in chapel hill pay time warner aol or bell south about 50$ a month that's $12,000,000 (12 million) dollars a year. Guess what when you SUBTRACT out the territory occupied by UNC even at 70,000 per square mile we essentially pay the cable companies EACH year MORE than what it would cost to build out the entire network..

How much money could the town save by switching to VOIP instead of land lines for Town phone service? How much money could the town save with electronic transactions instead of stamps and mail?

There are tons of ways for the town to save money and appease the "fiscal conservatives" while switiching to today's technology and getting more services to those who can't pay for it - while not raising taxes.

We'd be pretty stupid as a Town (and property owners) to become turtles in our shell and not even explore 21st century technology to increase services and efficiency.

Voting for people with no vision or leadership is a mistake.

Helena,

I don't agree that Fred Black is full of negativity. Too often political decisions become tradeoffs and I believe that is what Fred is cautioning against. I personally appreciate the contribution he has added to this discussion.

FYI--the town is in the process of switching from analog to VOiP. No cost studies have been provided to the IT committee, but that doesn't necessarily mean they haven't been conducted.

Helena, have you been drinking my campaign's koolaid?

You've nailed it. The productivity gains and the operational efficiencies we'll gain will unlock capital (social and economic) that could be used in a more effective, more strategic and more socially progressive manner.

How much money could the town save by switching to VOIP instead of land lines for Town phone service? How much money could the town save with electronic transactions instead of stamps and mail?

There are tons of ways for the town to save money and appease the “fiscal conservatives” while switiching to today's technology and getting more services to those who can't pay for it - while not raising taxes.
Kneejerk, simplistic, do-it-because-its-new is also not a way to run a government. New technologies need to be thought out, proven, and have a real cost-benefit analysis done on them as opposed to keeping-up-with-the-Joneses. VOIP, for example, is not equivalent to land lines for many reasons. It may be fine for home use, but in my experience, it's not acceptable yet for a professional environment (we had to remove VOIP from our business, for example). Also, "electronic transactions" are much more expensive for businesses, and I'm assuming, government entities than they are for individuals. Plus, with no paper trail, there's virtually no accountability, which is critical in government.
I'll be voting for candidates who are going to be reasonable, and actually plan technology expenditures, as opposed to those that simply try to jump into whatever new technologies are out there for no apparent reason other than "they're new".

"helena" seems to want to personalize this and make it about "my" tax increase. Heck, I helped to raise taxes by working to approve the bonds! It's not hard to understand the big picture here, but "helena" refuses to accept that a person can care about the big picture, especially if you have seen similar projects grow beyond anyone's expectations and ownership isn't taken by those elected. Yep, saving through productivity gains and operational efficiencies sounds wonderful, so I guess we've just never elected the right candidates or hired the right professionals to pull it off here in Chapel Hill Does anyone really believe this?

Since I don't know who "helena" is, I therefore don't know what s/he does as a volunteer. I do know that if I were as s/he described me, I wouldn't have put in all of the many hours as a volunteer that I have in trying to make this a better community. I'm sure many have done more, but I'm willing to bet many more have done significantly less.

That's not negativity. I owe a hair under $7K in taxes and that gives me the right to ask any candidate for office what they as voting members of Town Council, County Commissioners, and School Board want to do with our money.

Hope is not a method!

My point is that any change in government particularly one in chapel hill town council will involve lots of detailed planning, hearings, cost/benefit analysis etc... no one is advocating jumping off a bridge tomorrow. You might be mistaking campaign ideas for detailed plans of enactment. Without being more of an ass than I have already been, if you have questions for candidates (even Bill Thorpe now has a website) why not email the candidates your questions so you can get detailed answers that you will never get on websites or from the media?

I apologize but I have yet to hear any candidate say vote for me I will raise your taxes, and what is being passed as fiscal conservatism isn't really fiscally conservative... As I mentioned the example of a ONE TIME SAVINGS by not funding public art will easily be offset by the same proposal from the same person to increase salary and health benefits to Town employees. There are no real fiscal conservatives running because no one has come out and suggested what they'd cut (besides funding public art) . Even if non-profits are over funded which ones will be cut?

I apologize, I guess I see many places where using technology can improve customer service, reduce waste production of paper (good for trees), provide services to those who may not otherwise afford them etc... It seems a no-brainer to explore technology.

For frank Papa, as far as VOIP, I have been very happy with residential voip - have severed the land line and save about 25$ a month in paying bell south and sprint.. And it's not jumping on something new. I can't think of a national coffee shop type business that doesn't have wi-fi in it. Every airport has wi-fi and some airports aren't that much smaller than chapel hill.

And WillR's KoolAid tastes great.

In Laurin Easthom's "Guest Column" in today's CHH (sorry, it's not online) she says that one of the things that she wants to work on as a Town Council member is:

"Wireless Internet service will be a draw that should go downtown initially and eventually expand throughout town. With free wireless Internet service, people who otherwise couldn't afford costly cable fees will be able to access the Internet."

From a small part of Candidate Easthom's Column in a fuller context:
the sentence Fred took was from a small paragraph about helping downtown.
"• Parking is an issue downtown. We need to be creative and work with local businesses downtown on “shared parking”. When a business is closed on nights or weekends, the existing parking spaces could be shared for general public use. Wireless Internet service will be a draw that should go downtown initially and eventually expanded throughout town. With free wireless Internet service, people who otherwise couldn't afford costly cable fees will be able to access the Internet. "

I note at least 2 ideas that put forth for making down town better. That was the context for wifi. Not just to give out services but because those services can benefit BOTH businesses and residents. Alleviate parking without creating new impervious service including using existing parking. There are hundreds of UNC parking spaces that sit empty and unused on Rosemary/Franklin streets at nights and on weekends - peak restaurant hours. If the town advertised these spots I'd suggest the parking issue would be greatly alleviated. Wi-fi downtown for starters as a proposed business draw. I assume the billions of Starbucks and Borders that offer wi-fi aren't doing it to be good samaritans but because it makes good business sense to draw customers there and keep them longer.

People who pay more in taxes subsidize police and fire service for those who pay less in taxes.

Should we get rid of public police and fire because it is close to "free" for some people and more expensive for others?

I guess it depends on what people think of the digital divide and internet access.

My suspicion is that children born today will have large amounts of school work done via the internet by the time they are in high school. Do you want to look into the future or into the past?

Wi-fi downtown for starters as a proposed business draw. I assume the billions of Starbucks and Borders that offer wi-fi aren't doing it to be good samaritans but because it makes good business sense to draw customers there and keep them longer.
And what kind of business, other than a coffee shop, benefits from wi-fi, exactly? Will people be more likely to go to a mechanic because there's wi-fi there? How about a hair stylist? How about a tattoo artist? How about a bookstore? Video rental? Restaurant? Any kind of specialty retail? Gas stations? I honestly can't think of a single business, other than a coffee shop, that can benefit from free wi-fi. And even then, it still only benefits the customers that are wealthy enough to own a laptop. I don't think that's it's unreasonable at all to question "What's the purpose, what's the benefit, and who benefits?" before spending money on a public works project. In fact, I'd say that any politician who advocates spending money without even considering the benefit of the project is terribly irresponsible. And as far as a wi-fi project goes, I have yet to read a single, real benefit that it provides to a downtown area other than a town being able to say, "We have wireless, too!" to various travel/tourist publications and subsidizing coffee shops.

Weaver street market has tons of people hanging out with computers there, I'm guessing you're not a weaver street kinda person Frank. So we might agree that coffee shops and casual eateries would benefit?

The cost will be explored in detail. The amount of money already spent by businesses and UNC on Franklin Street could cover the cost already. Who knows, it needs to be explored. In fact it is my impression the downtown development corp is already exploring internet access for downtown. Is that an irresponsible group Frank?

As I mentioned (using Black's costs for wifi) the costs just residents pay (not even counting UNC) for internet access each year to the Telcos excedes the costs of building an entire network.

You seem to miss the IDEA of exploring technology with doing it tomorrow. Any change like this will take time and many studies and technology ALWAYS improves. I doubt many people will have land lines in their house in 10-20 years. Remember the rotary phone? Remember phones before 600MHz wireless? Remember the original Cell phone the size of a shoe box? Remember original "personal computers" with 500kb of hard drive storage?

You also seem to completely not understand tomorrow's technology (tomorrow meaning now).
There are wifi phones which are just being launched. So yes - if you had a wifi phone you COULD use it while getting your hair cut or waiting for a tire to be changed or checking in with guests who are late for dinner on Franklin street. Using VOIP and wifi is just getting here but wifi networks have lots of applications internet surfing is only ONE. We are not even talking about hand held wifi devices.
Yes in fact anyone visiting any business on franklin street could take advantage of wifi and municipal networks. You might want to read some of these.

http://www.jupiterevents.com/wifi/spring05/

http://www.brighthand.com/article/Future_of_Wireless_Networking

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/article.php/3531166

Frank - the business community gets a huge tax payer subsidy for taking away their trash - as identified by the citizens budget committee. Businesses unlike residents don't pay their fair share of garbage pick up. However, I realize there are other indirect benefits of subsidizing business for this.

Are you for raising taxes on businesses who get trash subsidies or does the community as a whole benefit from this.

This is a community benefit versus everyone for themselves type of argument. The efficiencies and redundant services (e.g. the coffeeshops already paying for service) may pay for it alone - who knows until it is studied.

For those interested in the many benefits of municipal networks visit.

http://muniwireless.com/applications/

and general reading

http://www.muniwireless.com/

Providence about the same square mileage as Chapel Hill spent 2.3 million for a town wide wifi network to improve safety for its responders..
As I mentioned - assuming only 20,000 people pay for internet access (completely excluding UNC) we pay 12,000,000 each year to the telcos.
http://muniwireless.com/applications/811

I'm kinda of surprised- If Frank is the owner of phydeaux I would of thought you would see the benefits of being next to WSM that generates lots of foot traffic.. and would see the benefit of attracting people near your business.

I don't knnow if you have to be a CHH or HS subscriber or not but Laurin's column is now online.

Note that the part that I quoted is a stand alone bulleted item, not a "sentence Fred took was from a small paragraph about helping downtown." Not only does it stand alone, careful readers will note that it's actually two sentence that specifically relate to this thread.

And since accuracy seems to be a major problem for some, let me say again, my concerns are priorities and how it gets paid for. As Terri wisely ponts out, the more she gets into it, the more complicated it gets. I'm not looking for a specific formula, I want to hear candidates tell us what their ideas are; it's not enough to just say, "I want Wi-Fi." Will Raymond has provided some ideas, how about other candidates?

Fred,
I suppose you want me to weigh in. Before I became a candidate I put my head together with WillR about wifi and municipal networks (before I knew he was to be a future candidate! which is great), and also have discussed wifi at length with Terri B. So I'm not going to add anything different to what they have stated above. They have done a very adequate job of explaining just how I would approach or go about a wifi system. I'm not really sure what you are looking for, other than to "hear" something else from "other candidates." I apologize for not entering in earlier, and I must admit my time is extremely limited these days. I'm trying my best to keep up with OPOL and all else.

Thanks Laurin!

I'm kinda of surprised- If Frank is the owner of phydeaux I would of thought you would see the benefits of being next to WSM that generates lots of foot traffic.. and would see the benefit of attracting people near your business.
I'm not really interested in talking about the specific impact to MY business, per se. I'm more interested in the overall impact on a downtown area. But let's take the WSM market example. First off, sure, there are a few people with laptops who are interested in bringing their laptops to a restaurant and using them. Realistically, we're talking about probably less than 100 people that 1. can afford a laptop and 2. don't have internet access at home and 3. want to use the Net with hundreds of people looking over their shoulder and kids tripping over their power cables. Realistically, assuming that maybe half of those 100 people go anywhere other than WSM market, you may have an additional 50 people walking around downtown. Let's also assume that most of those people would already be downtown, anyway.So then, I ask, what is the real impact, if anything, to businesses other than WSM? Sure, they're selling more food and more coffee because of it, but is Fitch Lumber selling more lightbulbs? Am I selling more cat food? Is Chicken Soup selling more kids clothes? Is Weaver St. Realty selling more real estate? Is Cliff's meat Market selling more meat? Is Club Nova selling more thrift items? If F&F Automotive fixing more cars? This is what I'm talking about. I'm still waiting to hear one example, even one reasonable theoretical way that downtown will benefit from wi-fi.I love wi-fi as much as any other geek out there (I was involved with the Net before the Web even existed). But I see *no* reason why wi-fi in downtown should be pursued if nobody can come up with one concrete benefit from it. If it's designed to be a coffee shop subsidy, fine. Let's just say so, and we can evaluate it as such. Right now it's being touted as some kind of general "benefit" to all of downtown but nobody has come up with one single benefit to downtown other than to help coffee shops.

this link explains benefits to residents of municipal wifi - at least COST

http://www.consumerreports.org/main/content/display.jsp?WebLogicSession=...|8535582596669285939/169937912/6/7005/7005/7002/7002/7005/-1|6251274889494135444/169937910/6/7005/7005/7002/7002/7005/-1&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=652711&bmUID=1127346551705

here's another

http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/article.php/3295951

you also ignored the future benefits of wifi -voip (e.g. wifi phones) and other wifi handheld devices.

Also Frank,

are you registered as a liberatarian (instead of unaffiliated) with the state because you think government should have as little a role in anything as possible?

Wow. First Katrina Ryan goes poking through the deed office to find where I live, and now we've got someone checking out how I'm registered to vote. Wow.
Yes, that is why I am a registered Libertarian. But even a non-Libertarian should be asking "what the purpose is" when spending governmental money. A water system gets clean, safe water to everybody so that they can survive. A fire departments keeps the city from burning down. Even groundskeepers keep the city looking good so as to attract more visitors, and for the enjoyment of all of its citizens. Wireless in downtown does what, exactly? The article that you linked to says that wireless will help retailers sell a bit more. Again, it comes back to coffee shops. I fail to see how wireless will help *any* other retail environments, never mind any other businesses.
Wifi phones are *extremely* bleeding edge, and really aren't even proven to work well. They may one day, but that's a long way off, and wireless technology is changing every few months. We had 802.11a a few years ago. Then 802.11b arrived. Now the stuff you can buy is 802.11g. What's it going to me next year? What about Wi-Max? What about bluetooth? It's going to take quite a while for these gadgets to become ubiquitious and affordable for anybody but the *very* wealthy, and by the time they are ubiquitous, I can almost guarantee that the technology and standards will be quite different.
Installing wi-fi now will benefit people with laptops on the grassy spot outside of Carr Mill Mall with extra time to burn. That's it.
If anybody is really interesting in helping either of the downtowns, there are a few REAL things that could be done for much cheaper and have a REAL effect:
1. Hire police officers to patrol on foot.
2. Prohibit delivery trucks from completely blocking traffic.
3. Give tax breaks to developers wanting to build *up*.
4. Organize just a simple downtown business owners group that meet on a regular basis.
5. More free parking.
6. More bike lanes.
7. And the list goes on and on...

My point is that if improving downtown is the goal, then there are *real* things that the local governments can and should do that will make an impact. Offering free wireless internet access in the downtown area is, quite honestly, a truly silly way to try to give downtown a boost.
Honestly, what's the scenario with wi-fi? A computer professional, with a $2000 "ibook", who has high speed access at both home and work is going to decide that driving downtown and sitting on a bench on Franklin St. next to a "homeless" person in order to (very slowly) read about what's going on in the Middle East on CNN.com is going to decide that now's a great time for new tires?
A financial executive with a $600 Blackberry and monthly subscription service and of course, high speed access at home, at work, in his car, and anywhere via his cellphone (again, much faster than wi-fi) will want to hang out in Maple Valley Farms Ice Cream in order to check his latest trades?
I mean c'mon. Is anybody grounded in reality about this topic?

If I weren't running for office, I'd be tempted to point out the irony of your stringent opposition for one "specialty" municipal program that benefits very few people while taking money from another.

Frank - the only reason I checked your registration out -which anyone can do - here http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/votersearch/seimsvot.htm

is because I don't want to expend any more effort on trying to argue with someone who thinks the governement (at all levels ) should do as little as possible.

Personally, I think municipal networks and wifi are a service that government should provide to its residents. If people read about it
www.muniwireless.com/ they will see tons of towns/cities are already doing it - and it actually cost about one-sixth of what Fred Black's article says it does. There is clearly a social justice aspect to municipal networks beyond cost effectiveness, efficiency gains etc... that I suspect liberatrians could care less about.

I'm sorry to find out you're a registered liberatarian but that explains a lot to me in my own warped mind.

As far as the bread and butter issues, pretty much every one is for neighborhood protection, against tax increases, and against crime. The bread and butter stuff really doesn't differentiate candidates it's who do you really believe will follow through on for instance neighborhood protection against lets say UNC and can do it most effectively.

And as Katrina pointed out the government is full of services that disproportionately benefit one group over another. As I pointed out rich people subsidize libraries, fire and police for poorer people and so on. however, just because they can't afford it doesn't mean they shouldn't get to use the library or have police protection.

Finally, you keep missing the end-game with municipal networks. It has to start small but can grow. The downtown is just a starting point for larger more visionary endeavors. If we do get true municipal networks EVERYONES bill will drop by at least two-thirds based on several municipalities that have done this. This would benefit everyone. However, as a liberatarian you probably don't care if government can provide cheaper services if you think they shouldn't be done by government in the first place. Also, you completely, miss the point about wifi phones and handelds and don't seem to care given you're one bad experience with VOIP. I've had VOIP and dropped both bell south and sprint with no service problems cooler features and a 75% drop in my monthly bill. There are both cost effective issues and social justice issues - not to mention improved safety for residents (see the Providence wifi example above) features to municipal networks.

You shouldn't feel bad Frank that people know you're a liberatarian it just helps explain what you expect from government.

Katrina, I can only assume you're referring to the loan program.
1. I've already pointed out, very thoroughly, with actual dollar amounts, how that program makes a significant amount of money for the town. It actually generates revenue both directly and indirectly.
2. The loan program is open and available to *any* business in Carrboro, and in fact, has already been used successfully by dozens of businesses.
Those are real, quantifiable, provable benefits. Wi-Fi, as far as I can tell, offers only a *very* marginal benefit to a couple of businesses, with no benefits back to the town at large. I could be wrong, but nobody has countered my argument with a single benefit yet, so I have to assume that there really is no benefit to Wi-Fi in downtown.

"... and it actually cost about one-sixth of what Fred Black's article says it does."

And what, pray tell, is "Fred Black's article?"

Sorry - the article that was cited that says 70,000 per square mile or whatever... didn't mean to imply yout wrote the article

Does social justice carry any benefit Frank? council member Kleinschmidt pointed out the lower income folks living near parts of downtown who could benefit.. Is that a benefit? or are only business loans and farm subsidies to Arecher Daniels Midland worthwhile endeavors for government?

"didn't mean to imply yout wrote the article"

Or introduced the article into the discussion. Paul Jones provided the link to the NYT article. What I conclude from all of this is that cost estimates vary greatly, thus making it harder to evaluate.

Another question: since the various cell phone folks say that the reason for poor service in some parts of towm is because the Chapel Hill won't allow more cell towers. If this is in fact true, will the town agree to having all of the required line of sight antennas?

Fred - the true techies can chime in but municipal wifi doesn't use cell phone transmitter towers...

They can be put on lamposts and other low to the ground PRE_EXISTING structures.. no new structures are generally needed.

If you read this article you will see the costs for doing all of philadelphia is ~ 10 million and it mentions putting them on streetlamps.. The downtown here would be a pilot program much as been done in Phily.

http://www.gcn.com/24_6/news/35315-1.html

it also mentions serving poorer people who don't otherwise get it.

No big ugly towers needed is my understanding.

I think Terri B. and others have pointed out planning for this stuff with any new development.

The largest benefits of wifi frequently accrue to the town itself. Police, fire, EMS, parking services, and transit all benefit from a municipal network. In many communities, town services serve as the trigger to the discussion. We've talked around a municipal network on the IT committee for a couple of years, but during the budget review this past spring when we saw how much grant money transit gets, some of us realized that the money needed to fund the vision could come from the popularity (political attention, funding) of transit. Rather than spending those funds for small, proprietary transit projects, we could work with transit to meet their needs, as well as those of other town services and local residents. I assume there are benefits for businesses (we'll find out more once/if we have approval to move forward). But we have enough evidence from other communities to know there are economic development benefits in the form of incentives to supplement other efforts, such as Carrboro's loan program.

Does social justice carry any benefit Frank? council member Kleinschmidt pointed out the lower income folks living near parts of downtown who could benefit.. Is that a benefit? or are only business loans and farm subsidies to Arecher Daniels Midland worthwhile endeavors for government?
Social justice? I'm not really aware how wireless access has any positive bearing on "social justice". If anything, it negatively impacts "social justice" since the main people to benefit will be wealthy (in the top 10-20% percentile as far as income, I'd guess)
And my being a Libertarian is completely irrelevant to this discussion, unless you're saying that only non-Libertarians are in favor of wasting government money, which I think is painting non-Libertarians with a bit of a broad brush and is a bit unfair.
Although you didn't explicitly say so, I think that I saw a tiny kernel of usefulness in your post. Let's say that Carrboro decides to provide wireless for ALL of downtown, with some of that overlapping into one neighborhood where normal people live. Is this really the best way to get average and poor people internet acess? By spending a ton of money to erect antennas all around town so that a handful of people *might* get access by accident? What about reliability? What about the majority of both towns' populations that don't live anywhere near downtown because of insane real estate prices? Is wireless going to extend all the way to the 54 bypass, where a lot of people who actually might need Internet access live? How about into the country?
Helena, if you really are at all concerned about "social justice" then you wouldn't support wi-fi. Wi-fi in downtown is about as elitist as you can get. You *really* want to get poor and average people Internet access? How about just subsidizing a dial-up connection that everybody can actually use? Most (average) people have telephone lines. Many people still have no access to DSL or Cable.
You want to work on "social justice"? Next time you go out to eat downtown, ask one of the immigrant dishwashers that make $7.00/hour what kind of laptop they have, and if they've upgraded to 802.11g yet. Ask a person cutting grass about their VOIP telephones. Maybe you can compare PDA's with a gas station attendant. After all, these are the people that will benefit, right?

You ignored the fact in the links that a town that went municipal cut the costs of internet access two-thirds - which benefits everybody.

Also, there are no special antennas that need to be erected - this is just false.

It's you're right to not believe government has a role in closing the digital divide or should have a social conscience. You can wait for timewarner to do it but it won't happen.

from

http://www.gcn.com/24_6/news/35315-1.html

Last year, Philadelphia started a pilot WiFi program with hot spots around the city, the first being at Love Park, followed by additional access points at Boat House Row, the Reading Terminal Market and other busy locations. About 1,200 people used the free WiFi in Love Park during the pilot's first two months, Neff said.

For the test, Philadelphia used equipment from Tropos Networks Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif. Tropos is equipping the city with wireless routers that plug into streetlights. The sockets “draw about 20 watts, the amount of a night light,” Tropos president Ron Sege said.

City workers installed 10 units per square mile. Each installation takes about 15 minutes. “They go up really fast,” Sege said. “You don't even need to understand how radio works.”

Cities provide water and electricity, he said, so why not WiFi? “Someday you'll be able to switch on WiFi like you do a faucet for water.”

Although its WiFi project has been attracting controversy like Ben Franklin's kite attracted lightning, Philadelphia is not alone. Dozens of U.S. cities now offer some form of subsidized WiFi, or plan to. Among the municipal WiFi brethren are Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Lexington, Ky., Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.

Cleveland's WiFi project has managed to steer clear of most conflicts with local Internet service providers and telecom carriers.

“We're not competing with them,” said Lev Gonick, who is spearheading OneCleveland's WiFi project.

“It's free,” said Gonick, vice president for IT services at Case Western Reserve University. “We're fundamentally exercising our institutional rights to connect access points to fiber in universities and libraries.”

The Ohio city is funding its wireless access through organizations that include the university, the local Public Broadcasting Service affiliate and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Cleveland is testing multiple technologies for the project, including lamppost transmitters and wireless bridges to light up the area between buildings. The project is also adapting existing access points in universities and museums. OneCleveland has set up more than 1,400 hot spots throughout the city.

Chaska, Minn., home of one of the first municipally sponsored WiFi projects, has also managed to avoid most of the political hurdles, said Bradley Mayer, Chaska's information systems manager.

The Minneapolis suburb began offering $15.95 monthly WiFi access to 2,000 of its citizens in November.

Why no vendor pushback? Because some service companies, including Time Warner Cable of Stamford, Conn., didn't think the small town's effort would succeed.

“A spokesperson from Time Warner Cable, one of the local providers, was quoted in a local paper saying, ‘It's not going to work, so we don't have to worry about it,' ” Mayer said. “But it works well enough that we have 2,000 customers that probably used to be Time Warner's customers.”

Chaska is using 250 Tropos nodes, all 802.11b, Mayer said. Most of the WiFi nodes are installed on city streetlights or other city electrical equipment

Critics of municipal WiFi efforts contend the government-run projects tend to be far from the cutting edge.

A report issued last month, Not in the Public Interest—The Myth of Municipal WiFi Networks, discourses for 28 pages on “why municipal schemes to provide WiFi broadband service with public funds are ill-advised.”

The report was produced by the New Millenium Research Council, a subsidiary of Issue Dynamics Inc., a Washington consulting and public relations company whose clients include BellSouth Corp. of Atlanta, Comcast Corp. of Philadelphia, SBC Communications Inc. of San Antonio, Sprint Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. of New York.

"Also, there are no special antennas that need to be erected - this is just false."

I did not say that Wi-Fi has anything to do with cell towers. What I am saying that if it is true that Chapel Hill does not want more cell towers (appearance issue?), then will it accept the small antennas all over the place that will be needed for line of sight service. Wi-Fi antennas are nowhere close to the size of cell towers, but special antennas will have to be installed. Several of the articles referenced show them, as well as back-up battery power boxes if we go that way.

Fred- I was responding to Frank Papa's phrase after your post not to you .

"By spending a ton of money to erect antennas all around town"

not yours... sorry I don't cite things accurately enough.

All I'll say is that if you think internet access will be required to function in society in the future (or maybe required for kids to do homework in the future) you might believe as I do that municipal networks can have lots of foreseen and UNforeseen benefits. There are tons of sources for tons of towns that have done and are doing muni wifi. Requests for proposals are essentially free to find out exactly how much it costs. It is not re-inventing the wheel its been done.

(Just since this thread it as occurred to me that expensive Encylopedias prevalent in my house as a kid, dictionaries, etc.. will be largely obsolete due to Wikipedia, google, dictionary.com etc.... there are lots of benefits for daily life, safety, education etc... only some of which we even think about.) I would bet encyclopedia sales have been plummeting due to the internet.

I am going to stay off this thread (if I can) it has devolved (or de-intelligent designed) into a peeing match.

http://www.govtech.net/digitalcommunities/story.php?id=96703
(excerpt: Corpus Christi Seeks Wi-Fi Partners)

"Without a Wi-Fi cloud up there, of course, nothing happens," Toregas added. "But once there is a cloud across cities, you are going to find that business models begin to shift. And we think that once you have a cloud there, what's going to happen underneath it is going to be a whole variety of services and products, including new companies with products we have yet to imagine."
....
At the same time, Noe realizes that it is the benefits offered by specific applications that bring value to any Wi-Fi proposition. As far as harnessing Wi-Fi to improve city government operations, they have undertaken a robust program of applications development. This involves several "Proof of Concept" projects in association with Intel's Digital Communities program with partners that include Blackboard, Dell, IBM, Intel, Northrop Grumman, PTI, and SAP.

The services currently under development in pilot stages include automated electricity and gas meter reading, streaming video and mug shot sharing in mobile public safety vehicles, automated personal location, wireless connectivity for building inspectors, school system communication enhancement between students, parents and teachers, and a volunteer health care database which emergency responders and medical personnel could access in emergencies to discover vital patient information before administering treatment.

While these projects are progressing, Noe believes that pursuing partnerships is now also a priority for the city. "For anyone interested in working with us, we want to hear how what we are doing might fit into their business model," Noe said. "And we want to know what they can bring to bear to make this system work better. Then we will sit down and come up with a business model that we hope works for everybody. That way we can create more opportunity for business and the community as a whole."

The key factor in making any public decision is a cost-benefit analysis, but there are intangible benefits to be considered. I like the idea of "community wide" wifi,which no one is proposing. I like the idea of access to knowledge and the free exchange of ideas being free( without cost). That principle is in accord with my populist values.

Carrboro's wifi is definitely a "downtown hipster" benefit. The real estate within spitting distance of the network is some of the most expensive in North Carolina, so it's tough to make an egalitarian arguement in favor of it.

Chapel Hill does have at least one mostly disadvantaged neighborhood in proximity to "downtown". It is arguable that a pilot program benefiting Northside and including some access to low cost hardware is the type of service that helps to bridge both the digital divide and the achievement gap. I would vote for a plan that included those two components.

The little town of Victoria Texas has had wireless high speed since about 2000. No technology companies have moved there because of the great wifi service and it hasn't been a boon to the economy etc. etc. I can't imagine any company factoring it into their decision making, so I wouldn't use that as a basis for launching the program.