We have scoured the Internet looking for posts that indicate why Philadelphia is a desirable place to live and fantastic retirement and relocation destination. We are sad to report that Philadelphia does not appear in too many top ten lists. So, we decided to create our own, a FDS special list on why Philly is A-Okay for retirees and newbees of all kinds.

1. Philadelphia is filled with affordable housing. This is particularly true if you decide to live outside of the Center City hot-spots of Society Hill, Washington Square, and Rittenhouse. Bargains are to be had in many neighborhoods that border on Center City (Graduate Hospital, Queens Village, Bella Vista, Fishtown, Northern Liberties, and Logan) and a few that are within minutes of downtown like our very own Fairmount, Germantown, East Falls, University City and Mt. Airy. Check out Prufoxroach.com to see housing by location.
2. Philadelphia is home to numerous medical schools and university affiliated hospitals. These include: The University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Drexel University, Jefferson University, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and Wills Eye Health System.
3. Philadelphia has four seasons! We have it all: hot, balmy summer days; warm and colorful falls; blistery sometimes white winters, and flowery springs. The city’s annual flower show to welcome spring is not to be missed!
4. Related to number 3, Fairmount Park is amazing! It is one of the largest urban parks in the country. One of Fairmount neighborhood parks is within walking distance of every city resident, or so the Fairmount Park website claims. Our favorite feature is the walking path along the Schuylkill River. The new Spring Garden Street entrance to the Art Museum is open, so we can walk the dogs on the path from Fairmount to Rittenhouse Square or from Fairmount to Manayunk!
5. Philadelphia has lots of terrific restaurants. Some of Fairmount Dog Stories favorites are: L’Oca, Ralph’s, La Baia, Effie’s, Hikaru, More than Just Ice Cream, and David’s Mai Lai Wah.
6. Philadelphia is a performing arts mecca. We love ballet and other performance arts. Philadance.org provides lots of info about the dance scene in the city. The Academy of Vocal Arts is located in Rittenhouse, along with the Curtis Institute of Music and The University of the Arts. All offer low and no cost student performances; many of the areas professional performing artists receive their training in the city as well. For fall visitors, the Fringe Festival is a must.
7. Philadelphia is a college town. With eighty degree granting institutions, Philadelphia ranks at the top of the nation in terms of the concentration of institutions of higher learning – one of the top retirement amenities!
8. Philadelphia’s neighborhoods are distinctive and filled with character (and characters!). Here are three guides to city neighborhoods: About.com’s guide, Helium’s seven articles on Philly hoods, Wikipedia’s take. We are thinking about creating a FDS version sometime soon….
9. Philadelphia has lots of services. They are not fancy, but they are plentiful. Check out: Free municipal wireless service, SEPTA public transportation, Phillycarshare, Museums and Galleries (including the newly relocated Please Touch Museum), and wonderful architecture to explore in and outdoors.
10. Philadelphia is home to the Fairmount Dogs, Sadie and Lily!

Happy New Year to all!

MM & RY 2008

A recent article from Tirana Magazine on Philadelphia’s wi-fi network, the Wireless Philadelphia organization and doing a really solid job on…

Defining the digital divide

There’s been a lot of chatter over the years about the digital divide or the idea that there is a great chasm between people who have access to technology such as computers and the Internet, and those who do not. While some 68 percent of the U.S. population has access to the Internet via broadband or dial-up connections, there are still millions of people across the country who do not have any access at all.

Overwhelmingly, these unconnected individuals tend to be minorities and people with low education levels. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that only 57 percent of African Americans and 37 percent of Hispanics have Internet access. And only 29 percent of people who have not graduated from high school are connected to the Internet.

It’s difficult to gauge what the impact of this exclusion means. In the past, Internet access was viewed as an unnecessary luxury, a tool used to send e-mail and casually surf Web sites. But increasingly, the Internet has become an important tool for getting information about and access to just about everything from health care to social services. It’s used as a tool to engage parents in their children’s education. And as newspapers shed their classified listings, it’s become an important tool for looking for jobs.

“Digital inclusion has traditionally been seen as a charity initiative,” The Knight Foundation’s Perry said. “But that is rapidly changing. Increasingly, cities of all types–urban, suburban, and rural–are linking universal digital access to economic development imperatives.”

From the beginning, Wireless Philadelphia’s goal has been to provide broadband service to families who have never owned a computer and have little or no online experience. The group believes that getting these families online will increase their access to educational, employment, and life opportunities.

But it will also have big benefits for the city, such as reducing crime and unemployment, improving public health and social service efficiency, and increasing educational excellence.

“It’s nearly impossible to apply for an entry-level job today without having basic digital skills and Internet access,” Greg Goldman, CEO of Wireless Philadelphia said. “And there have been studies that show patients who access information online about HIV AIDS, hypertension, or diabetes have better health outcomes.”

We’ll find out what happens next quite soon…

In order to simplify my life and give the company that pays me the full value of my work and energy, I will now be posting to my blog on the People’s Production House website. RSS feed coming soon.

Remember the much-ballyhooed Wireless Philadelphia MuniFi networking effort that was going to be the cornerstone of a new EarthLink? The very same network that the Atlanta-based ISP had to abandon because it found itself sinking in financial quicksand? Many of us thought that the network that cost $17 million to build was dead.

EarthLink offered to give away the network for free to the city, but there were political issues that could not be resolved. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the rumors of its demise might have been greatly exaggerated. Later today, a new investor group will announce that it’s jumping in to save the network at the urging of local politicians, though the plan is to put the network to more governmental use.

The investor group, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, is made up of local money men Derek Pew and Mark Rupp. Pew was once an interim chief executive officer of Wireless Philadelphia; he now runs his own company, Boathouse Communications. Rupp, an ex-Verizon executive, works for Boathouse as well. I will try to update when the official press release comes out.

It’s only 1:00am, but so far “Young Artists Find Private Space, Without Privacy” is outpacing “Citywide Wi-Fi could be shut down” by 3 to 2 in terms of how often the article has been emailed to me. Suffice it to say, there are no surprises in either one.

The Metro article tries to be coy about One Community’s attempt to deal with EarthLink and Wireless Philadelphia and that the sticking point is the money EarthLink owes as part of the Street Light Use Agreement (as I detailed on March 25). I’ll write more about this soon. Feel free to email me or comment below with specific questions.

One more thing about the Metro article: It’s not accurate to call Wireless Philadelphia “the nonprofit set up to help low-income residents connect to the system,” since it was actually set up to own the system, then it found a new purpose in managing the system, then it abandoned that to help low-income residents connect to the system. So that’s why it’s there now, but that’s not why it was set up. Erasing that history obscures the organization’s responsibilities.

Media Mobilizing Project has just announced that they are holding a public forum on June 3 on the future of Wireless Philadelphia. The announcement is below.

This couldn’t come at a better time. Everyone is hungry to chart a new course, including EarthLink, as I laid out earlier this week. And MMP, which has been offering media trainings to many community and labor organizations in Philadelphia, is the right group to convene this discussion. See the list of sponsors at the bottom.

I’m particularly heartened to see Wireless Philadelphia listed. It’s a sign that Greg Goldman understands the need for public re-engagement and that he cannot make that happen on his own.

I encourage everyone in Philadelphia to attend this event. I expect it will be closely watched by everyone in the field of municipal broadband

The Future of Philadelphia’s Wireless Internet Initiative: A Public Forum

When: Tuesday, June 3, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Tuttleman Learning Center, Room 105,
Corner of 13th St. and Montgomery Ave. Temple University

Get connected!  Learn about the latest issues surrounding Philadelphia’s wireless Internet initiative during a June 3 public forum.

The Media Mobilizing Project and Temple University’s School of Communications and Theater are co-hosting a public forum, which will be the beginning of an ongoing dialogue about the future of Philly WiFi and the city’s promise to provide affordable broadband access to all residents.

Under Earthlink’s management, Philadelphia’s wireless network has faced both technical and customer service challenges, weakening public engagement. Now is a vital time to reignite the discussion about the wireless network as Earthlink officials have announced their intention to sell or transfer the 135-square mile network. With new ownership on the horizon, a renewed opportunity exists for Philadelphia’s WiFi initiative to serve as a national model for community media. The promise of a city where everyone has the potential to be connected, opens new doors for economic, social and political participation.

The forum will host a diverse panel of speakers, while including an open space for participants to speak about the future of the wireless Internet initiative. It will be held in 105 Tuttleman Learning Center, Temple University, at 6:30 p.m.

The time is now. While so much opportunity exists with the WiFi network, it is essential for Philadelphians to have a space to share their ideas about making digital inclusion a reality across the city. By participating in this forum, local residents can help shape the future of the network and ensure that all Philadelphians, regardless of their income or education levels, have access to affordable, high-speed Internet.

The event is co-sponsored by: Wireless Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Student Union, Casino Free Philadelphia, Juntos, Philadelphia FIGHT/Critical Path Project, Geoclan,  Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania, The Philadelphia Unemployment Project, Prometheus Radio Project and Media and Democracy Coalition.

EarthLink’s dump of its municipal wireless business is almost complete. It walked away from Alexandria and Arlington, Virginia, in April; handed its Milipitas and Corpus Christi systems over to the municipalities; and is set to shut down wireless service to New Orleans on May 18. That leaves just Anaheim and Philadelphia.

Tourist-rich Anaheim is an anomaly. EarthLink’s one-page contract with the city can’t be much of a burden. But there is most certainly a resolution in the works for Philadelphia.

As I argued in a previous post, I believe the best option for Philadelphia is for EarthLink to pass the system to a nonprofit organization with network management experience. EarthLink was not able to find an interested buyer for its New Orleans system, so there’s still no reason to think that is an option for Philly. But I don’t think anyone in Philadelphia, even in the Nutter administration, wants to see the system simply dismantled. So I believe nonprofit intervention is also the most likely scenario. I believe it will happen this quarter, in time for the MuniWireless conference in Philadelphia.

EarthLink is highly motivated. The walk-aways, shut-offs, and give-backs with the cities listed above all happened in this quarter. EarthLink wants to close out Philadelphia this quarter, too. Losses from these soured deals will be offset by $50.8 million of incomeEarthLink received in April from the sale of its share of Covad to Platinum Equity.

As it dumps its municipal wireless business, EarthLink has found that its strongest profits are to be found not in broadband service but in dial-up. The dial-up customers, while declining, are relatively stable and highly profitable, while new customers are expensive to acquire and quick to exit. This strategy has allowed the company to cut the cost of marketing for new customers. EarthLink has also laid off more than half its work force, outsourcing all of its tech support, which probably has helped it get rid of costly customers.

This streamlining yielded first quarter profits of $57.8 million, a huge turnaround from the $30 million it lost in the last quarter of 2008.

EarthLink now sees potential profits in our stagnant digital divide. CEO Rolla Huff has his eye on the remaining 8.5 million subscribers to AOL dial-up service, which Time Warner has said it wants to slough off, as well as United Online, which owns Juno and NetZero, and Microsoft’s MSN subscribers. EarthLink is the second largest dial-up service provider with 2.6 million customers. Huff estimates the total number of commercial dial-up subscribers to be 15 million to 18 million. Consolidating all of those customers would generate a lot of cash.

EarthLink still has the same problem that motivated it to dive headlong into wireless deployments, as I explained in The Philadelphia Story: without its own infrastructure, its DSL days are numbered. But now, instead of pushing forward to build new infrastructure, it is retreating to the old phone lines that are still protected by common carriage.

In other words, EarthLink, once the harbinger of digital inclusion, is becoming the enemy of broadband.

If you read the New York Times or keep up on municipal wireless, you saw this weekend’s article, “Hopes for Wireless Cities Fade as Internet Providers Pull Out.”

The key takeaway from the article is Sascha Meinrath’s statement, “The entire for-profit model is the reason for the collapse in all these projects.” It wasn’t wireless technology or municipal engagement that went awry, but the private franchise business model. If you want an expanded discussion of that idea, check out Sascha’s recent article, “Municipal Wireless Success Demands Public Involvement, Experts Say.”

But the second thing you should note is a factual error – and not just because it’s the New York Times. The article says, “In Philadelphia, the agreement was that the city would provide free access to city utility poles for the mounting of routers.” In fact, EarthLink is supposed to be paying $2 million up front plus $2 per pole per month for access to 5,000 poles.

The second half of that $2 million is due one year after Proof of Concept Acceptance, according to Section 7.1.1.3 of the PAID-EarthLink Street Light Use Agreement. (PAID is the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development, which owns the poles.) Counting from the press release from May 24, 2007, that deadline is in about 8 weeks. Any bets on whether the City’s going to collect?

I’m not surprised that the Times wouldn’t check the original contracts or even Becca Vargo Daggett’s comprehensive but readable summary. I’m surprised that the City isn’t making it loud and clear that EarthLink owes them money and they intend to collect.

It is now common knowledge that EarthLink has failed to live up to its agreement to build a citywide wireless network for the people of Philadelphia. Fortunately, the Network Agreement gives Wireless Philadelphia various mechanisms to hold the Atlanta-based corporation accountable. For example, WP can declare a “Dark Day” for the system if there is significant outage and compel EarthLink to remedy the situation. Yet WP has not exercised any of these provisions, even though these are clearly dark days for Wireless Philadelphia.

In December, Philadelphia Chief Information Officer Terry Phillis and Wireless Philadelphia Chief Executive Officer went before City Council and assured the members that EarthLink was still hard at work building out the wireless network throughout the city. They promised EarthLink would resolve all of its subscribers’ problems. It is now clear the information they provided was false.

In January, Mr. Phillis told Computerworld that as early as November when EarthLink said it was considering “strategic alternatives” for its municipal wireless division, he understood that “Wi-Fi is no longer in their strategic initiatives, and they wouldn’t make that statement if they were continuing here.”

EarthLink recently affirmed that the project is up for sale. In November, they valued their entire municipal division at $40 million. In a recent filing, they announced losses of $32 million just in the last quarter of 2007. Plus they are hemorrhaging what few subscribers they have. Their primary assets, the thousands of wireless routers on light poles throughout Philadelphia, function poorly and are hard to upgrade. Overall, the Philadelphia network is not an attractive product. Moreover, any buyer would need approval from City Council, where there is little love lost for EarthLink.

Yet the project’s goals – bridging the digital divide, stimulating the local economy, and increasing the efficiency of local government – remain as critical as ever. And federal and state governments still offer more roadblocks than assistance. Unfortunately, the current plan locks the city into a single solution to all of these problems: the stalled, malfunctioning EarthLink network.

Wireless Philadelphia and Mayor Michael Nutter should not wait for a proposal from EarthLink. Neither should the people who this project was originally intended to serve. “We still believe in the vision of an entire city connected,” says Todd Wolfson of the Media Mobilizing Project, which is training new immigrants to make and distribute videos over the wireless network. “But it is going to require a holistic plan that goes beyond the now-tarnished silver bullet offered by former CIO Dianah Neff.”

Greg Goldman recently told The Bulletin, “There are creative ways to re-envision the model.” It is hard to guess what that could mean, but he makes clear that the City will not step in to take over the network.

With finding a buyer unlikely and municipal ownership out of the question, the best hope is that EarthLink will donate the system to a local nonprofit. It is the only option that City Council would look on favorably and the company’s only chance to garner positive publicity. The tax write-off would probably do as much for EarthLink’s bottom line as a fire sale would.

The challenge for this option is that no single organization in Philadelphia has the capacity for such an undertaking or could marshal enough community support. Wireless Philadelphia, which was originally founded to own the network and is supposed to be managing it, is mired in politics and has no technical expertise. To go forward, Philadelphia’s many community technology organizations should come together in shared ownership of the network. Wireless Philadelphia, which has done valuable work in identifying and partnering with some of these groups, could be the vehicle for this, though it would need to be completely restructured.

However the project proceeds, the men who assured City Council in December that everything was on track now lack credibility. Terry Phillis is a holdover from the previous administration, a sad sign that Mayor Nutter is content with the status quo on this issue. Greg Goldman has been apologizing for EarthLink for the past year despite obvious warning signs that the company was neglecting its obligations to the people of Philadelphia. With a new beginning on the horizon, the project needs new leadership. If we act now, we can brighten these dark days for Wireless Philadelphia.

Tonight I’ll be a guest on Charing Ball’s People, Places & Things on G-Town Radio discussing Wireless Philadelphia.

On Wednesday, I’ll be in DC at New America Foundation discussing “The Future of Municipal Wireless.” There’s a rumor it might be webcast, so tune it at noon.

Tomorrow, New America Foundation will release my report on Wireless Philadelphia. If you read my blog, you know I’ve followed this project closely for the past two years. The report is a summation of my observations, focusing on lessons municipalities and community activists can apply to similar projects in their communities.

As part of the release, New America Foundation (NAF) and the Philly IMC Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) are hosting a public discussion on Wireless Philadelphia. They had originally planned it for 2-5pm at the Ethical Society, but then late last week the City Council Committee on Technology and Information Services announced a hearing for 1pm on Wireless Philadelphia.

Once they found out about our event, the City Council invited NAF and MMP to hold it in City Council Chambers immediately following the Committee’s hearing. So now I would like to invite you all to attend:

The Philadelphia Story: Learning from a Municipal Wireless Pioneer
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
1pm: Committee Hearing
2pm: Public discussion
City Hall, room 400

Printed copies of the report will be available at the event. I’ll post a PDF tomorrow, after I catch my breath.

UPDATE: PDF AVAILABLE 

Michael Maranda posted a comment recently to my testimony before the New York City Broadband Advisory Committee. He asked me to expand on one of my recommendations:

• Promote horizontal relationships among stakeholders rather than hub-and-spoke relationships that all connect to this committee or to any one person or organization.

The original promise in Philadelphia was to tie the city together with “invisible thread.” That’s what Dianah Neff told National Geographic. It hasn’t happened.

In planning the network and passing it through City Council, Wireless Philadelphia solicited input and testimony from a variety of nonprofit organizations. All of those organizations care about the issue of Internet usage and all work with overlapping constituencies. Yet Wireless Philadelphia did not take any steps to foster relationships among them that would encourage synergistic collaborations.

Instead, WP is forming “Wireless Internet Partnerships” or WIPs, a series of one-one-one relationships between Wireless Philadelphia and individual organizations. I am not aware of any plans to connect these WIPs to each other so the groups can form their own partnerships. At best, maybe we’ll see a WIP cocktail hour.

Ideally, the horizontal relationships would extend beyond the organizational level. I’d like to see local conventions where all of the users of the network could gather, and the people who make up these nonprofits’ constituencies could get to know each other. I think these municipal wireless projects will benefit by emphasizing their local-ness and I think the users/local residents will benefit from having stronger social bonds.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Wireless Philadelphia or Earthlink want their customers to have the capacity for collective action or self-management. Not surprising for a for-profit company with meager customer service. But the nonprofit should be trying to build community, not disempower users.

The problem for Wireless Philadelphia is that the only reason for them to exist is to mediate the relationships between the City and Earthlink, Earthlink and the poor residents of Philadelphia, and the WIPs and Earthlink. If all of those entities could relate directly to each other, they’d quickly realize there is no reason for WP to exist.

I think the system in Minneapolis, where the Minneapolis Digital Inclusion Fund Advisory Committee has just released it’s RFP, is better, but not perfect. There, the people that pushed for digital inclusion funding organized themselves, though the efforts were soon co-opted into an official “Task Force.” The result is a community-advised fund at the Minneapolis Foundation, funded primarily through a revenue-sharing agreement with US Internet, the local network operator.

The participants in that Advisory Committee have horizontal relationships with each other instead of all having separate relationships with a new nonprofit, as in Philadelphia. However, I can’t find any list of the members of the committee online (though I know Peter Fleck is one because he’s blogged about it). That makes me concerned that those relationships won’t grow beyond the Committee’s boundaries.

If they want to push that network further, they are going to be swimming upstream. The process of soliciting grant applications from 501(c)3 organizations is notorious for pitting groups against one another and creating secretive one-to-one relationships between applicants and funders.

Minniapolis Digital Inclusion Advisory Committee should consider setting up something like GiveMeaning.com – not to let people vote for recipients of the Committee’s funds, but to promote awareness of the broad variety of initiatives people in the city are doing and to give those initiatives an avenue to raise additional funds.

As I promised yesterday, here is some audio from the International Summit for Community Wireless Networks.

I recorded three sessions:

Holistic Planning & Deployment of Wireless Networks

Shaping the Research Agenda for Municipal and Community Wireless Networks and Access to Broadband

Economics of Community Wireless Networks in Developing Countries

You can follow the links (click where it says ODEO) to see the session descriptions. Of the three, I recommend listening to the “Holistic Planning & Deployment of Wireless Networks” session. In that session, Michael Maranda from Chicago, Peter Fleck from Minneapolis, Robin Chase from Boston and Dana Spiegel and Michael Lewis from New York City each discuss their city’s respective projects.

I went through the trouble of pulling out Robin Chase’s comments from that session because the Boston story, which I blogged about last year when the city’s task force released their report, remains a severely underreported success story in the municipal field.

As I wrote in my article on the summit,

The Open Air Boston request for information describes a non-profit network owner that only provides wholesale access, but that does so in such a way that there is practically no barrier to entry for retail service or application providers. (When the portion of the Boston RFI emphasizing the desire for an open source solution was read out loud before the breakout sessions on Sunday, the audience broke into applause.)

The price target for service on the Boston network is $10-15 a month, which they believe they can get to precisely by cutting out the money grubbing cablecos and telcos.

The deadline for responses to the RFI is this Friday, so you better get cracking.

The New York City Broadband Advisory Committee held its first public hearing last Friday in the Bronx. If you missed it, Kat Aaron filed this short but comprehensive report for WBAI.

If you’d like to listen to the whole hearing (or almost all of it; we ran out of tape at the very end), you can check it out here. It’s about 3 hours long.

The Committee’s blog has some info from the hearing, like this testimony from a Bronx teacher who discusses the urgent need to expand students’ access to the Internet.

I posted my written testimony here yesterday. I recited a condensed version to the Committee, which you can hear here.

In my testimony, I spoke more to the process more than to the presumed outcome. From seeing how it has gone down in Philadelphia, I know that the challenge is to address the clear and urgent need for high-speed Internet access without selling ourselves short. The only way to do this is to keep all of the doors open and address all of the city’s challenges collectively and comprehensively.

I’ll post more info and analysis from the hearing in the coming days.

The next hearing of the New York City Broadband Advisory Committee will be in Brooklyn and is tentatively scheduled for mid-May.

Wireless Philadelphia is having a $200-a-ticket soiree tonight for the richest Philadelphians to celebrate the imminent launch of Earthlink’s network, which is supposed to benefit the poorest Philadelphians. Becca Vargo Dagget tears this unfortunate irony apart in her most recent post, “‘Let them eat wi-fi.’”

I did the interview with Greg Goldman, CEO of Wireless Philadelphia. He shared a good chunk of his morning with me, which I really appreciate. An edited version of the Q&A will appear in the next issue of GovTech’s Digital Communities Magazine. Thanks to everyone who suggested questions. I’ll keep you posted.

One important line of questioning that we touched on in the interview was Wireless Philadelphia’s strategy for communicating with the general public of Philadelphia. It’s not fully-formed, but it is starting to take shape and it is not very robust.

WP has hired a Northern Liberties web firm to design its website. Goldman wouldn’t give me the name of the company when we spoke, but it’s now posted on the slightly-new WP site: O3 World.

Goldman said the completely new site should go live in early December (about the time the test area will be complete). By the way, for those who asked, Goldman says he’s not going to have a blog.

Wireless Philadelphia has also selected a vendor, Ninth Wave Media, from Toledo, Ohio, to provide “community websites.” From the selection announcement: “Ninth Wave Media is the company that has managed the Olney and Norris Square Pilot Portals during the pilot phase of WP. The proposal for six links—one each for Teens, Young Adults, Parents and Children, Seniors, Visitors, and Small Businesses–is based upon the experience gained by WP and Ninth Wave during the Pilot Phase.”

These are steps forward. But Wireless Philadelphia is also taking some fateful steps backward. For starters, the revamped WP site no longer includes the contract documents. To correct that, I’m reposting them here:

• WP EL Network Agreement
• WP Management Services Agreement
• WP Articles of Incorporation
• (For the Network Agreement exhibits and the streetlight use agreements among Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development, the City, and Earthlink, contact me.)
  

The updated website, like the earlier version, has broken links for the pilot area brochures. Every one links to the Norris Square pdf.

The second step backward: The promised “Community Advisory Board” for which Wireless Philadelphia was going to solicit applications, according to statements before City Council, has become a an “‘Advisory Committee,’ comprised of members selected by most of our City’s elected officials,” according to Goldman in a follow-up email. That committee had its first meeting on October 19, as I understand it.

The idea of a community summit, which the consultant Karen Archer Perry and interim CEO Derek Pew had discussed, is off the table. Instead, there will be an invite-only happy hour at the SoleFood Lounge this Thursday, October 26, from 5:30-730. The WP website says details to come. Here’s the invite:

Mostly, Goldman has been speaking directly with a very small number of organizations like People for People and Solutions for Progress. These are good groups, but if you’re not on the short list, you are shut out.

I’ll be sharing more thoughts and ideas on Wireless Philadelphia as they develop and when the interview is published. In the meantime, here’s an interview he did with the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network in September.

Read more posts on Wireless Philadelphia. 

I understood what the Boston Wireless Task Force had proposed from reading Esme Vos’s post on it and reviewing the report. But Sascha Meinrath’s article really brought home how radically different the Boston approach is from, say, the Philadelphia approach.

Philadelphia is letting a private company build a new “last mile” solution. City residents will have a lower-cost alternative, Earthlink, to the two wires currently connecting their homes to the Internet: the copper wires owned by Verizon or the cable wires owned by Comcast. This will have a profound effect on tens of thousands of households that will be getting online for the first time, but it will not fundamentally change our relationship to our communications infrastructure.

Here’s how the Boston Task Force presents that relationship:

Boston sees the new network a little differently. Their proposal imagines it as a neutral platform connecting all of the people in the city to each other, like the streets. The business model is designed to sustain that interconnectedness, allowing users, small businesses, non-profits, and big businesses to offer services that capitalize on it.

It goes even further, as Sascha points out: “Basically, the goal for the Boston wireless network is not just to get broadband access to residents, it is also going to be a proving ground for new business models, technologies, applications, and future innovations.”

Here’s the Boston diagram to express how the nonprofit-owned, open access, neutral network results in more services, applications, and Internet options for the end user.

They even label what is normally called the last mile – the portion of the network that connects your home to the trunk cables running to your neighborhood or street – the first mile, recognizing that content starts at the home.

The second diagram also shows how the Boston model undermines the current duopoly.

Derek Pew, former CEO of Wireless Philadelphia, pointed out to me that what we’ll have in Philadelphia isn’t even a network, really: “Remember that calling it a network is a little bit of a misnomer – it is an access network, but it does not have core network functionality and services – merely a backhaul capability. That makes it a small part of a broadband solution and all cities have a much larger task ahead of them in terms of marrying core functionality and services with access.”

As with the Internet, the wires or wireless connections only become valuable when we do something with them. I expect people in Philadelphia will be surprised at the range of applications that will become possible once the wireless network is in place. Unfortunately, the innovation and experimentation that will incubate those applications may wind up taking place in Boston.

In a newsletter distributed Tuesday via email, Wireless Philadelphia announced that wireless high-speed Internet access through Earthlink will start at $21.95/month for retail customers. This is higher than Wireless Philadelphia’s original target price of $16-20/month.

There will be a “Digital Inclusion” rate of $9.95/month, which is the same price announced in earlier statements.

I’ll see if I can find out an explanation for the increase, but it’s an early setback for WP’s strategy to control prices. Except for the direct price cap on the DI rate and the fixed cost of wholesale to Wireless Philadelphia (ranging from #11/mo for up to 10,000 accounts to $8/mo for more than 50,000), WP mostly hoped to control prices through indirect means.

Some early reports said there would be a minimum requirement of three resellers for every service Earthlink offered, but from what I can tell the Wireless Philadelphia-Earthlink contract only requires that resellers be treated in a non-discriminatory fashion. If that proved ineffective at keeping prices low, contract negotiators expected WP would use its wholesale option to bring an additional reseller into the market, one with less pressure on the bottom line. The contract allows WP to sell its wholesale accounts to only one reseller that must operate under the WP name.

We’ll see if they choose to exercise that option, now that the price of an Earthlink account has gone up by approximately 10 percent.

The newsleter also includes a map of the test area currently under construction and bios for the entire WP staff, along with a group photo. As a group, they seem like an enjoyable bunch with extensive experience in service-oriented non-profits.

Since it does not seem to be on their website yet, the entire email is reproduced after the jump.

If you’re interested, I’ve written earlier on what the Wireless Philadelphia budget will look like. Their main tasks will be fundraising, dispersing the Digital Inclusion accounts and supporting other as-yet-unspecified DI programs, and overseeing the network by monitoring service levels and keeping City Council and the Mayor’s office informed.

WP is also expected to form a Community Advisory Board. The makeup of the CAB is a major remaining piece of the Wireless Philadelphia puzzle. The permanent CIO is another. The Chief Information Officer that initiated the project, Dianah Neff, recently took a job with Civitium, the consulting firm she hired. That move is under investigation by the City’s ethics board. Varinia Robinson, who as Project Manager ran the nuts and bolts operation, has a contract that runs out at the end of this month.

Wireless Philadelphia has its work cut out for it.

See more of my articles on Wireless Philadelphia.

———————————————————–

Everything below this point is from Wireless Philadelphia, not me:

Introducing Wireless Philadelphia

Wireless Philadelphia is the non-profit organization that – along with its partner Earthlink – is helping Philadelphia to become the nationÕs first completely wireless major city.

Wireless Philadelphia was created to make high-speed Internet access more available and affordable through Digital Inclusion. WP will help all citizens, businesses, schools, and community organizations embrace this broadband technology to achieve their goals. WP will also work to strengthen the City’s economy, enhance the visitor experience and streamline City services.

Installation Has Begun

With the installation of devices called routers, Philadelphia has officially begun the process for making affordable wireless high-speed internet service available to every neighborhood in the City. Over the next two months, these routers – which use about the same amount of electricity as a 60 watt light bulbÑwill be installed on light poles and other high structures about 1,000 feet apart throughout a test area known as the Proof of Concept area.

The Proof of Concept area includes more than a dozen neighborhoods stretching 15 square miles (see map above). In this area from October through December, Earthlink and Wireless Philadelphia will test the technology and the processes by which citizens subscribe for this service. By fall of next year, wireless high-speed Internet access is scheduled to be available throughout all 135 square miles of Philadelphia.

This service will be priced beginning at $21.95/month for retail customers, and a Digital Inclusion rate of $9.95/month will be available to those who qualify. In order to be eligible for the Digital Inclusion rate, customers can have income up to 130% of the federal poverty level, or already be participants in certain supportive programs, such as Medicaid, Section 8, SSI, Food Stamps, LIHEAP, TANF, and/or the Free Lunch program.

Free access will be available in certain public spaces such as parks and public areas. These include Love Park, the Historic Square Mile, PennÕs Landing, Cobbs Creek Environmental Center, Hunting Park, Wissahickon Environmental Center, Pennypack Environmental Center, FDR Park and Penn Treaty Park. In addition, each district councilperson will name a public space within his/her district where citizens can go for free access.

Questions? Visit our website at www.wirelessphiladelphia.org for updates or send us an e-mail at info@wirelessphiladelphia.org.

From left to right: Dionne Ellison, Amber Kealey, Thomas Kim, Agnes Ogletree, and Greg Goldman

Greg Goldman
Chief Executive Officer

Greg Goldman, the first permanent CEO for Wireless Philadelphia, has a background in both the not-for profit and for profit sectors. He was most recently Vice President of Korman Communities, a Philadelphia-based residential real estate company. Prior to that, Greg was the Executive Director of MANNA, a local organization that delivers nourishment to people living with HIV/AIDS. During his six-year tenure, the organizationÕs service capacity and budget more than doubled, and its reach extended to include all 11 counties of the tri-state region.

From 1992 to 1998, Greg was the Senior Program Officer at The Philadelphia Foundation, where he directed financial resources to dozens of community based organizations throughout the City and region

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Northwestern University, Greg holds a Master’s Degree in public policy from the University of Chicago. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Eisenhower Fellowship, an international development program for emerging community leaders.

Agnes Ogletree
Chief Operating Officer

For the last several years, Agnes Ogletree has been the COO for the Transitional Work Corporation (TWC), a non-profit organization located in Center City Philadelphia that provides job training and placement services to entry-level workers. Agnes was responsible for the day-to-day management of all internal activities, most notably, the organizationÕs annual fiscal budget of $15,000,000. Agnes has also been an active member in Philadelphia’s fundraising community. Her committee work includes organizations such as Gift of Life, Marion Anderson Awards Gala, Breast Cancer Health Gala, and the Children Crisis Treatment Center “Round Up.” She also established The Rittenhouse Bed & Breakfast in 1997.

Amber Kealey
Director of Communications

Amber Kealey is a communications, public relations and special events professional. Her projects have included Comcast Presents “An Evening with Bill Cosby,” the Comcast Cable initiative on drug prevention and education which brought Bill Cosby to a benefit performance at the Academy of Music; Comedy Central’s Indecision 2000, The Daily Show’s coverage of the Republican National Convention culminating with Comedy Central’s Capitol of Comedy Party in Philadelphia; and a branding campaign for the non-profit MANNA that culminated with a new logo, tagline, DVD and website for the organization.

Dionne Ellison
Director of Community Relations

Dionne Ellison will work and partner with community based organizations across Philadelphia to develop and deliver programs that bridge the digital divide and create a neighborhood presence for the overall Wireless Philadelphia program. These organizations will serve as the point of contact for all Digital Inclusion customers and their needs e.g. training, opening an internet service account, PC purchase info, etc. Dionne brings to her role 12+ years of IT background, including work with Cigna, wherein she was a member of the team that piloted LAN Token Ring technology for their field litigation offices across the country.

Thomas Kim
Operations Manager

Thomas Kim will play a key role in the development and implementation of Wireless Philadelphia’s internal systems, focusing on fundraising and community programs. Recently with United Way of Greater Mercer County, his responsibilities included web-based fundraising campaigns and the management of charitable donations from various Fortune 500, higher education, and governmental entities throughout the region. Thomas also served as a production coordinator for a boutique advertising firm in New York where he was able to hone his digital and technical savvy.

The Philadelphia wireless project is shifting gears. As the network takes shape, the founders are out.

Philadelphia Chief Information Officer Dianah Neff, credited with conceiving the project, is reportedly about to resign. The Inquirer paints her legacy as one tainted by scandal: an aide whom she kept on the payroll even though he was ineligible for city employment; and an $18 million computerized billing system that doesn’t work.

My friend and colleague Becca Vargo Dagget from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance pointed out how absurd that the city would risk $18 million on the billing system but be unwilling to risk the same amount to own a wireless broadband network.

Check out Becca’s defense of municipally-owned wireless networks in this back-and-forth on the Muniwireless blog. (ILSR is in Minneapolis, by the way, where the next Muniwireless Conference will be October 23.) The post is about Boston’s new proposal, which is similar to the original idea in Philly: having a non-profit pay for, but not operate the network.

Anyway, most people seem to think Neff is getting out while the getting-out’s good and will soon be making even more than her $193,000 salary in the private sector. Another possibille motivation is her bad health, which kept her away from the City Council hearings on the network.

In related news, Wireless Philadelphia recently announced the hiring of a new CEO. Greg Goldman replaces interim CEO Derek Pew who negotiated the contract with Earthlink.

Goldman most recently worked for a real estate firm, but formerly ran a feed-the-hungry type non-profit and worked at the Philadelphia Foundation. He sounds like a non-profiteer who will focus on fundraising. According to the job description, he’ll be making about $175,000 a year.

See the Wireless Philadelphia press release [pdf] on Goldman’s hire. It will be interesting to see if they post any other job announcements.

There will be a new CIO, though it will probably be an internal hire. Earthlink is starting to build the physical structure of the network. Wireless Philadelphia will be seeking community partners, beginning to shape it’s digital inclusion programs. If you want to play a role in defining how those things are going to work, now is the time to speak up.
Read more of my articles on wireless.

One of the lines of questioning at yesterday’s City Council hearing examined what the revenues and expenses of Wireless Philadelphia would be. While it’s all speculative, especially before a permanent CEO is hired, this is what we heard:

To get off the ground, Earthlink will make all of the electricity payments in the first two years. WP will pay back its 50% share of those PECO bills in years 3-10. WP’s payments on the $1.4 million loan from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC, which manages PAID) will be deferred for the first year. Those measures are intended to allow WP to get off the ground using the $2 million lump sum payments from Earthlink (for the pole attachments), which will come in over the first 18 months of the project.

WP’s staff will be small: a CEO, an executive assistant, and one or two program managers. The CEO will be paid $150-175,000/year. A large portion of WP’s work will consist of processing applications for the subsidized accounts. (That seems unfortunate to me, to use up “digital inclusion” money processing applications for digital inclusion.)

By year 3, WP will be paying it’s half of the PECO bills, repayments on the PECO bills from years 1 and 2, repayments on the PIDC loan, and the organizational overhead. This will undoubtedly chew up the $750,000-$1,000,000 per year from Earthlink.

The expectation is that Wireless Philadelphia will raise an additional $3-4 million a year through foundations, government grants, and corporate donors to support its digital inclusion programs. While I believe a prominent non-profit with a well-paid CEO will be able to raise that money, the downside is that the money is coming from a limited pool and other community technology programs may lose out in the process.

Yesterday I wrote about the racial and economic implications of digitizing the public sphere (and spoke about this at the MuniWireless conference). I mentioned a distinction between “digital inclusion” and “digital expansion.”

Digital inclusion has gained a lot of traction as a phrase, especially in Philadelphia where Wireless Philadelphia has all but branded it to describe the social programs they are planning to close the digital divide.

But to me (and to other people I’ve spoken with) it carries an implication that people who are offline are being brought into a perfect world. That’s clearly not the case.

What we see in the online world is the result of a land rush where English speaking white men had first crack at the virtual real estate. Digital inclusion is like saying poor people, people of color, and non-English speakers are allowed to shop in white neighborhoods.

(I’ve heard that the phrase “digital divide” was first promulgated by the US Department of Commerce, which makes a lot of sense in that regard.)

People talk about the entrepreneurial opportunities that will come from “closing the digital divide.” They’re there, but anyone who is arriving now to the online world is working at a disadvantage to those who came before. It’s one more example of government policies perpetuating economic divisions based on race.

We want to do more than just include people in the online world as it currently exists. We want that new involvement to transorm that world. This is what I hope to imply with the phrase digital expansion. It’s also what I want to imply when I talk about “open internet.”

I had a conversation along these same lines yesterday with Brownfemipower, who writes the Woman of Color Blog and will be at the AMC this weekend.

She comes at it from her experience with INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence and a desire to use online tools to bolster grassroots base building offline. But she’s now developing a women of color blog ring and working to build a base in the online world, not focusing on pure quantity of hits or email addresses but on finding the allies and people in need of support that she or INCITE! would not find offline.

It goes without saying that this is needed. As BFP described with telling examples, the online world is no less racist or violent towards women than the offline world. In many instances it is more virulent. It might provide some physical security at times, but can expose private information in other instances. Women of color are online and they need support, especially from other online women of color.

This stands on its head a common assumption in online activism, one that was particularly prevalent within Indymedia when I was active in that network: that to reach poor people and people of color you need to go offline.

The divide is real so of course this is partly true. But it is also self-fulfilling as it removes the motivation to provide meaningful content and safe, useful spaces for those folks who are online.

So rather than working to include people in this world as it currently exists, we need to expand the digital world and our imaginations of it.

One player who quietly returned to the scene at yesterday’s City Council hearing was Comcast. Their rep was there before the hearing, putting doubts in councilmembers’ ears and handing out two recent news articles:

• From the AP: “Free, but frustrating: Fla. city’s new Wi-Fi network holds lessons for other cities.“

and

• IDG News Service: “San Francisco Wi-Fi plan may face political heat“

Word is, Comcast is convening a closed door meeting Monday morning to chat things over with some City Councilmembers or other decisionmakers. I wonder what they’ll say…

Ahead of today’s hearing, a consultant working for, I assume, Wireless Philadelphia sent the following notice to some community members she’s been getting to testify before City Council and otherwise support the WP-Earthlink deal:

For those of you that I have met with, I have been clear, that my expertise is in the community programs – not the politics of the City of Philadelphia. That being said, I feel that I must personally request your continued and visible support at Wednesday’s Hearing on Wireless Philadelphia.

The Wednesday Hearing is the fourth one to discuss this program and I feel that it is time to move the project out on committee and to a full Council Hearing for vote and – I hope – approval and deployment. WIRELESS NOW! NO MORE DELAYS!

If you are available to stop by the Hearing at 2:00 in room 400 at City Hall that would demonstrate the strong citywide and community support for this project that we know exists. If you are comfortable bringing a sign or placard with a message around WIRELESS NOW, that would also be appropriate.

If you want to speak briefly on the need to move forward quickly, just fill out a card when you arrive. And – if all goes well, you may be invited to share your thoughts with the press. It’s time to stop the delays and move forward. I need to be at another event in DC, but your presence in room 400 at 2:00 would really make a difference. Stop by if you can – and feel free to bring other advocates with you! THANK YOU!

I just sent the following response to the same group:

I agree that everyone should come to the hearing, but not to rally in favor of Earthlink’s network. I think we need to let them know that the community has its eyes on this process.

This deal is worth $200 million of our money. As someone who has attended all of the City Council hearings on this matter, I have to say that the Councilmembers’ questions have been insightful and important. I am as skeptical of politicians as anyone, but Council’s oversight is completely legitimate.

Our representatives have every right to ask for clarification on the PECO rates and on Earthlink’s subcontracting practices. If they don’t get that information now, it might be another 20 years before they get to ask any more questions.

[Consultant,] I appreciate all of your work engaging us in this process. I certainly understand why anyone who works for Wireless Philadelphia would want to see this network deployed A.S.A.P. As an Internet-obsessed wonk working for a local non-profit, I want to see it get going myself.

But no matter how much we rally, it won’t be our network. So, while I encourage everyone to support the wireless project, I suggest we all do it with a bit of healthy skepticism. I’m sure Earthlink would love to become the Comcast of wireless networks.

If any of you are at the hearing today, please say hi. I’ll be the white guy not wearing a suit.

Respectfully submitted,
Joshua Breitbart

Communications Director
Media Tank
www.mediatank.org

ps – For an easy-to-understand breakdown of the wireless contract, check out this report: http://www.newrules.org/info/philly-earthlink-contract.html

A much better notice went out earlier in the day from Hannah Sassaman from Prometheus Radio Project, who has been keeping a close eye on the wireless plan:

hello all,

just a heads up — tomorrow is the last big hearing that the city is organizing on the municipal wireless project. the city is about to enter into a formal contract with wireless philadelphia, the nonprofit set up by the city to manage a wireless network built by earthlink. please consider stopping by — wednesday, april 26, 2006, at 2:00 pm, in room 400, city hall. please come if you can, and forward widely!

there are many, many questions about how our community needs will be served by this new network. will wireless philadelphia and earthlink make it possible for community organizations to help get their neighbors online? how many of us will need to buy expensive wireless devices to supplement the wireless coming from the streetlights? and will the important community content – like the videos produced at scribe video center, the content hosted at the IMC, and the community newspapers and websites scattered across the city – be marginalized or promoted to users of the network

immediately after the hearing, city council’s joint committees on technology & information services, and public property & public works will vote on whether to authorize the city’s plan, so there should be a pretty big crowd. this is a big chance for the earthlink executives to see that we are watching them — and that we’ll be there to make sure they deliver the Internet service our city needs.

My question is, how are they going to tell the boosters and the watchdogs apart?

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is reminding us in Philly how good we have it, but also how much we have lost since we first glimpsed the possibility of citywide wireless broadband. PDP plans to contract with US Wireless Online to wireless the downtown area in time for the All-Star Game this summer.

As in Philadelphia, the plan is not restricted by Act 183. The issue for Verizon is the spending of city money. (As much as Verizon hates competition, they hate socialism more.) That is not happening in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. In other words, it is a misnomer to call either a municipal project. They are corporate wireless networks: private-private partnerships.

(Note the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article says the Councilman plans to hold hearings on the Wi-Fi issue in the next few months. If you know anyone in Pittsburgh working on this issue, please put me in touch. The time for them to act is now.)

Wireless Philadelphia, Philly’s non-governmental organization, has a mission to close the digital divide and reduce the cost of city government and we expect it to be accountable to the City. The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is accountable to the downtown businesses and has a mission to “differentiate the real estate Downtown.” That’s why they dismissed Earthlink’s pitch to wireless the whole city. Residents and kids be damned.

Unlike Pittsburgh, Philadelphia has the option of also building its own network, thanks to the backroom deal the City struck with Verizon to secure passage of Act 183. The contract between the City and WP is not exclusive, insofar as I understand it, even though the contract between WP and EL is exclusive. (I’ll discuss in a later post how the Philly deal is de facto exclusive.) Pittsburgh could only attempt to contract with Earthlink, US Wireless Online, or another provider to build out the entire city without Verizon’s permission.

This scenario also hints at what we’ve lost as a result of the Philadelphia model. In Philly, we went from community wireless, right past municipal, to corporate. Many people are still referring to the Philly and San Francisco plans as “municipal,” but unless the city is paying for it, operating it, or owning it, it is not a municipal network. If it is paid for by a corporation, owned by a corporation, and run by a corporation, it’s a corporate network.

How did that happen? One problem was that many (though not all) of the so-called “community wireless networks” were actually civic wireless networks. Rather than community-based efforts to solve local problems, they came from a small group of technologically-endowed people wanting to contribute to their city. This becomes a problem when the city or a corporation moves in. If people’s only connection to the project is access to the technology, they will not care who provides the technology. If there is no sense of ownership of the project, there will not be a sense of loss when wireless’s first responders are shoved aside.

In Philadelphia, there was so much attention from the citywide RFP and Verizon’s successful attempt to block municipal projects through state legislation, that no one thought to switch their vocabulary when the City itself was taken out of the equation. So a city administration acting in our name but without our involvement pulled a bait-and-switch. And now all of the major citywide wireless networks being built around the country are corporate, not municipal.

These developments are giving new urgency to Pennsylvania HB 2466, the “green light” provision introduced by State Representative Mike Sturla to amend the muni-broadband restriction in Act 183. It is important that we reassert government’s role in building this infrastructure. This is especially true for smaller cities and rural areas, where the Earthlinks and US Wireless Onlines will not be as quick to submit a bid.

There are a lot of contracts in play here in Philadelphia connecting Wireless Philadelphia (WP), the City of Philadelphia (office of the Managing Director and office of the Chief Information Officer, not to mention City Council), the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID), and Earthlink (EL).

Some of the relevant documents are up on the Wireless Philadelphia website, including the Wireless Philadelphia Broadband Network Agreement [pdf] with Earthlink. Some aren’t, but have been distributed to members of Council, members of the press, and other important people like that. The most significant of these documents is the Wireless Philadelphia Management Services Agreement [pdf]. The rest deal with the streetlight use – the City authorizing PAID to authorize Earthlink to put up the boxes.

I would appreciate any comments or observations of these agreements from lawyers and wonks and concerned citizens. I’ll be posting my analyses of different parts of the contracts here in the coming days.

The last City Council hearing on the matter is next Thursday, April 20, at 1pm. But Councilman Brian O’Neill, who chairs the technology committee, isn’t sure there will be a vote then. According the Philadelphia Inquirer, “Among the details O’Neill still wants settled: who pays for the electric power for the wireless transceivers that run the system, and how Council can weigh in on any future changes to the agreement with EarthLink.”