Philadelphia's wireless war / Videocast / ZDNet

Philadelphia's wireless war
CIO fights for affordable broadband

Videocast

Philadelphia is looking to be the first major city in the U.S. to provide citywide low-cost broadband access.

CIO for the city, Dianah Neff, sits down with ZDNet editor in chief Dan Farber to explain the politics and technology behind the "Wireless Philadelphia" project.

Watch the videocast here
18 minutes 16 seconds | Aug 2, 2005 4:52:00 PM

+ Related:

Dianah Neff | Hands off our Wi-Fi network! | CNET News.com | February 10, 2005, 3:15 PM PT

Why are Wireless Philadelphia and other city wireless programs such a big threat? More precisely, why do the big boys keep trying to kill our Wi-Fi networks?

Tell me who among incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs)--have deployed ubiquitous, high-speed wireless networks that support roaming/mobile capabilities. No ILEC. Who provides high-speed, broadband, ubiquitous services at dial-up rates for the underserved populations? No ILEC. Who is working to get equipment and training into the homes of low-income and disadvantaged portions of our community? Again, no ILEC.

No, they'd rather charge the city governments with having an unfair competitive advantage because of the governments' access to tax-exempt financing. But who says we are financing Wireless Philadelphia with tax-exempt funding? What about all the incentives the ILECs have received the past two decades? When was the last time they were elected to determine what is best for our communities? If they're really concerned about what is important to all members of the community, why haven't they built this type of network that meets community needs or approached a city to use their assets to build a high-speed, low-cost, ubiquitous network?

For all the money they've spent lobbying against municipal participation, they could have built the network themselves. The truth, of course, is that the incumbent local exchange carriers want unregulated monopolies over all telecommunications.

(...)

Who says the government is going to be the ISP or build the network? What about the old public-private partnership models? Maybe--just maybe--they should see what the City of Philadelphia is proposing before they attack.

biography
Dianah Neff is chief information officer for the City of Philadelphia. The city plans to offer wireless broadband access to residents by the summer of 2006.

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