Wireless Waters

What Have I Learned About Municipal Wireless Networks?: Part 1

I 'm Mike McKay, co-founder and CTO of RF Connect, program managers for the largest municipal WiFi network initiative in the United States, and part-time MBA student at The University of Michigan's Ross School of Business Administration.  I took some time recently to list a few of the key lessons we've learned (so far) about municipal networks.  Here are the first three.

They are, if not inevitable, very popular with municipalities.  There are hundred of initiatives under way and dozens of implementations, ranging from a few city blocks to Oakland County Michigan's 910 square miles (2350 square kilometers).
They combine economics, politics and technology in unequal parts.  Many of these initiatives are billed as public-private partnerships.  In a currently popular model, the municipalities provide access to their assets, such as buildings and light poles, in exchange for services, such as low-cost or non-cost basic access to residents and visitor. While this may well be a fair trade, it is important for both the public partner and the private partner to understand the quantity and locations and value of the available assets, as well as the value and cost of the services provided by the wireless operator.
Pole attachment rights and joint use agreements with the utility need to be negotiated.  In some cases, as 90% or more of the access points may be mounted, not on municipal assess, but on utility poles, subject to joint use provisions, and in many jurisdictions, to joint use tariffs.  Understand these provisions thoroughly.

San Francisco Wireless Network RFP Response Available

One of my favorite websites for municipal wireless is Muniwireless.  They do an outstanding job of covering the field of municpal wireless networks.  Among the many gems hidden on their website are Requests for Proosal, and sometimes, RFP responses for muni wireless networks.  I found the Cisco-SeaKay response to the San Francisco wireless RFP to be quite informative. 

RF Connect Chosen as Program Managers for $100 million project

RF Connect LLC of Farmington Hills, MI was introduced by MichTel and Oakland County Wednesday, February 15th, as the technical program managers and systems integrators for the 910 square mile, $100 million Wireless Oakland Project.  VP of Business Development, Jeff Hipchen, had this to say about the project:

We are proud to be an integral member of the team MichTel has put together for the Oakland County wireless project.  We look forward to working with the other Wireless Oakland partners to bring visibility to the technical aptitude an resources that already exist within Oakland County that will enable building and delivering to the citizens a world class network.

MichTel Announces Wireless Oakland Partners

Pontiac MI, February 15, 2006 -- At a press conference today MichTel, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and the Wireless Oakland Project Team revealed the first set of partners for the Wireless Oakland Project, designed to provide wireless service throughout the 910 square miles of Oakland County by the end of 2007.
The text of the county press release begins

" MichTel Communications LLC and the Wireless Oakland Project Team are excited to announce that Cisco Systems, RF Connect, Dykema, UHY Advisors, and Johnson & Anderson, along with several other professional service firms are joining the Wireless Oakland initiative.

MichTel has done a fantastic job engaging partners who support the goals of the Wireless Oakland initiative," Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said.  "These partners add financial strength, global expertise, and international resources to this cutting edge project"

Cisco will provide the network infrastructure.  RF Connect will provide design, program management, and system integration, Johnson & Anderson will provide municipal and civil engineering, and Dykema and UHY will provide legal and audit services, respectively.

Utility Metering

Remote meter reading is often touted as a significant cost-saving strategy which can help justify the investment in a municipal WiFi network. However, well before municipal WiFi networks appeared on the scene, the technology for remote meter reading was well-developed, oftn involving a van driving through a neighborhood and reading RF devices attached to the utility meters. Microchip ha published an interesting and informative white paper , an Introduction to Utility Metering Tutorial, which describes this technology in some detail.

Rural Broadband Access

Academic papers on wireless netrworks tend to be, for me, focused on extremely limited topics and/or devoid of insights applicable to commercial development and operation of wireless networks.

So I'm pleased to be able to recommend a paper out of Montana State University on rural broadband networks whcih is suitably rigorous while being quite informative.  The authors are Mingliu Zhang and Richard S. Wolff

Check it out at:

Crossing the Digital Divide: Cost-Effective Broadband Wireless Access for Rural and Remote Areas

http://www.coe.montana.edu/ee/rwolff/Divide-rev4.pdf

Evaluation Items for Municipal Wireless Equipment

Here's a partial list of items used for assessing municipal wireless systems

Technology
Access Points per square mile
(urban, suburban, exurban, rural)
Max radios per AP
Average radios configured per AP
Power requirement and interfaces
Transmit Level 11/g, 11/a, WiMAX, 4.9GHz
Receiver Sensitivity (min receive level)
@  54 Mbps
@  36 Mbps
@  18 Mbps
@   6 Mbps
Default Antenna gain structure
Configured Antennas
Latency / hop
WiMAX / Pre WiMAX Strategy
Interoperability Issues
QOS
4.9 GHz capabilities
# of hops
Partnership Opportunities
Joint Marketing
Joint Applications Development
No cost upgrade of any deployed radios to 4.9GHz ASA Available
Engineering Resources (as cost of sales)
Deployment Resources (as cost of sales)
Size of Company
Willingness to train and utilize local resources/
Product Direction
Multiple Radio Support
WiMAX Support
802.11a Access radio support
Applications Development
4.9 GHz applications
Cost
Discount
Radio
Switches and routers
Backhaul
Data Center
Gateways and Operational support Systems
NOC
HelpDesk
Overall Project Cost
Operational Cost
Warranties
Updates
Software
Training
Required Staffing
Financing
Amount, rate Schedule

Lack of municipal Broadband Threatens American Success

While the article below give insufficient weight to the fact that the extensive USA wired network definitively shapes the American demand for wireless broadband, it nevertheless makes the point that we cannot neglect infrastrcture. 

from http://www.govtech.net/digitalcommunities/story.php?id=97829

Let There Be Wi-Fi

January 2006 By Robert McChesney and John Podesta, The Washington Monthly

Broadband is the electricity of the 21st century -- and much of America is being left in the dark.


Two decades ago, the chattering classes fretted about economic upheaval rising from Japan and the Asian Tigers. They feared an invasion of cars, microchips, and Karaoke that would take away American jobs, take over U.S.-dominated industries, and shift cultural norms. In the 1990s, America responded with a boom in high technology and Hollywood exports. But a revolution is again brewing in places like Japan and South Korea. This time it's about "broadband" -- a technology that, in terms of powering economies, could be the 21st century equivalent of electricity. But rather than relive the jingoism of the 1980s, American policy makers would be wise to take a cue from the Asian innovators and implement new policies to close the digital divide at home and with the rest of the world.