This morning I was at a really great panel discussion on “The Growth of Wireless Internet : From Community to Municipal to Corporate,” which featured several leading experts and activists in the field of community wireless:
- Dharma Dailey, Ethos Group (moderator)
- Michael Calabrese, New America Foundation
- Harold Feld, Media Access Project
- Michael Lewis, Wireless Harlem Initiative (You can download his Powerpoint presentation here.)
- Sascha Meinrath, Champaign-Urbana Community Wireless Network (Powerpoint presentation)
My computer died mid-session, so I wasn’t able to take very detailed notes. But after the jump you will find a list of resources and some of my notes. Also, Sascha and Michael Lewis promised to get me links to their powerpoint presentations later.
Community Wireless Resources
Ethos Group http://ethoswireless.com/
Center for Public Integrity http://www.publicintegrity.org
Media Access Project http://www.mediaaccess.org/
Wireless Harlem Initiative http://www.wirelessharlem.org/ , Powerpoint presentation of initiative
New America Foundation http://www.newamerica.net/
CAIDA Caida.org/projects/commons
CUWIN Cuwin.net, Powerpoint presentation about projects
Wireless Summit Wirelesssummit.org
Net Neutrality Savetheinternet.com
ARIN www.arin.net
Other Wireless Resources:
Michael Calabrese, New America Foundation
Good news: There has been a boom in community wireless broadband – we’re winning.
Grown of community wifi:
- from wifi hotspots, to zones, cities, regions, and states.
- Zones – university campuses, parks
- Municipal – Champaign Urbana, Philly
- Multi-county – Long Island, Vermont, New Hampshire
- 250 municipal and county-wide that have been deployed
- 4,000-6,000 WISPs – wireless internet service providers
3 public interest issues from community wifi:
- Digital inclusion: affordable access to broadband is going to determine business, cultural, educational future of communities
- Can preserve net neutrality – puts pressure on wireline duopoly and cell internet services
- Benefits of pervasive connectivity – ubiquitous access.
Two main barriers:
- Access to the airwaves
- The guarantee that networks can be made public
Open Spectrum Policy
- wireless networks exist within unlicensed spectrum
- opening up the spectrum would make wireless networks cheaper and better quality
- municipal and community networks won’t scale if they are limited to the current “junk band”
- Meanwhile TV band is sitting mostly unused. Broadcasters have access to 48 channels. Most markets use only 7 channels.
- We need people to sound off on this issue with the FCC, showing that they would use these TV "white space" bands. It’s docket number 04-186 on FCC agenda. (Link to e-file your comment.)
Technorati Tag: NCMR2007
Rik – Thanks for offering to host the session’s resources. Will check back for the links and PPTs.
No worries. Feel free to propose other resources and links.
Thanks Rik for attending the session and for posting the links. I also wanted to pass along two others if your readers want to keep abreast of the municipal wireless movement, including:
http://www.muniwireless.com
http://www.wifinetnews.com
Let me know if you need any additional info.
Michael Lewis
Wireless Harlem