CHICAGO – With Chicago trying to add the Olympics to its list of great accomplishments, the city better include updating its network infrastructure and move beyond just a third-party Wi-Fi agreement.

The “city that networks” has to look beyond national Wi-Fi comparisons and into the real competition of global cities that have significant investments in fiber.

Word of Caution: Wi-Fi Projects Are Failing

Anyone thinking that third-party Wi-Fi is the ultimate answer is fooling themselves. There is no getting around the issue that a network infrastructure is a big capital investment that can provide great results if implemented correctly.

Initial hype that Wi-Fi is a cheap way to go is getting replaced by excuses when network topologies don’t provide what was hyped. In a recent article, the argument was that they are overhyped as universal solutions.

“They are the monorails of this decade: the wrong technology, totally over promised and completely undelivered,” said Anthony Townsend, research director at the Institute for the Future.

Municipal Wi-Fi projects use the same technology behind wireless access in coffee shops, airports and home networks.

Many cities and vendors underestimated the number of wireless antennas needed. MobilePro’s Kite Networks wound up tripling the access points in Tempe, Ariz. by adding roughly $1 million or more than doubling its costs.

“The industry is really in its infancy. What works on paper doesn’t work that same way once you get into the real world,” said Kite COE Jerry Sullivan.

One blog put it succinctly:

Communities need to regard telecom as essential public infrastructure that’s critical to community and economic development. That well-designed community infrastructure includes both wireless access and fiber to every home and business.

With the right business and financial planning, such systems can pay for themselves and provide new revenue streams to local government while lowering the cost of telecom services. Everybody wins.

In past columns, I have made the argument that we are supporting a stagecoach-era network infrastructure that doesn’t provide what we need to compete globally. While some have agreed with me, many still don’t see the light. Having a Wi-Fi network in place will not suffice.

The following is from Technology Futures. I couldn’t have said it any better.

Wi-Fi is expensive if you truly want total coverage. Many Wi-Fi projects underestimate the number of access points that are needed. This is something that is causing problems with the much-touted Philadelphia Wi-Fi effort.

Some contractors and vendors may be underestimating the number of access points to keep costs lower. It is important to be realistic during the planning stages about what a community can do.

Wi-Fi is not a business-class solution. Few businesses of any size are willing to run their business on a Wi-Fi connection. While it may be OK for small, one- or two-person businesses, most businesses want a more secure and reliable wired connection.

Wi-Fi has reliability problems. Even if you are in range of an access point, foliage on trees, building walls, rain, snow and other access points can degrade the signal. Because Wi-Fi is an unlicensed service, anyone can run an access point.

All those home wireless routers can cause interference and slow down other access points. Wi-Fi – even the newer “G” and “N” services – can’t handle video very well.

This limits the potential of such a service to be financially viable. A municipal broadband system has to have a solid business model that is financially sustainable. That means being able to carry business and residential video services.

No one seems to be talking about making a real investment in network infrastructure. This would include a significant fiber-optic network. That is what it’s going to take in addition to all the other upgrades Chicago is talking about.

While it’s great to hear about new harbors being built, that is only one part of the total infrastructure. The part of the city’s infrastructure that really needs some heavy investment is its network infrastructure. How can I get that point across?

If we look at sports comparisons, maybe more people would get it.

Anything less than having 1 Gbps as a goal for 2011 would be like saying the Bears will try to win 10 percent of their games next season, the White Sox will show up for every home game this season or the Cubs will definitely serve hot dogs at home games.

Do these sound like lame goals to all you sports fanatics? That’s how bad lame objectives for network infrastructure sound to those of us who truly understand where we have to be in a global market.

Top 10 Cities: Forget the Midwest

In a new study, the top 10 digital cities were recently ranked according to the following criteria: broadband speed, cost and availability; wireless Internet access; technology adoption; government support for technology; education and technology culture; and future potential.

If Chicago is to compete globally, it needs a world-class network infrastructure. What it has now isn’t even close. These are the top 10 digital cities according to the article:

1. Seoul
2. Singapore
3. Tokyo
4. Hong Kong
5. Stockholm
6. San Francisco and Silicon Valley
7. Tallinn
8. New York
9. Beijing
10. New Songdo City

Where are Midwest cities on the list? They’re not there.

When you look at what subscribers receive in other cities, our network services don’t come close. All the rhetoric by network carriers, local politicians and lobbyists doesn’t get us any closer to the current speeds others use in countries like Japan, Korea and some cities in China.

The Cost of Network Services

In Hong Kong – where broadband exists in 73 percent of households – the price is $40 a month. That is pretty reasonable.

Very few people know that Japan had nearly 8 million fiber-to-the-home broadband subscribers by the end of 2006. According to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, 75 percent of Japanese residents have the benefit of a full 100 Mbps fiber-optic broadband at $30 a month. That’s 100 Mbps.

The closest comparison would be Fort Wayne, Ind., which has 128,000 subscribers with fiber-to-the-premise (FTTP). They get 50 Mbps to the house. What does Chicago have? What does Milwaukee have? What does Detroit have? What do these cities think they need in order to compete globally?

Look at the speeds offered in current packages.

Anyone touting DSL as sufficient broadband doesn’t know what they are talking about. Maybe that is the problem in the Midwest. Too many people have bought off on phony definitions of what broadband connectivity is when it’s not even close to reality on the global scale. The article goes on to say:

Sixty-five percent of Singaporean households have broadband. In Dec. 2006, the Singapore government said it would roll out free wireless broadband across the island. More than 400,000 Singaporeans already have registered for the service.

The government also plans to deliver wired broadband speeds of up 1 Gbps by 2012.

Declining Infrastructure Equals Declining Stature

Unless we have some objective that matches or exceeds 1 Gbps, we are woefully behind. Broadband connectivity should be defined as 1 Gbps. Period. Anything less than that as a goal for the near future is obsolete.

There are new applications that we are not even thinking about in the Midwest. What we consider to be “embryonic technology” – or technology that hasn’t even been proven in the market – is clearly accepted technology in the top 10 digital cities. We see this in the same article:

Digital mobile TV broadcasting or “digital multimedia broadcasting” was launched in South Korea in 2005. Nearly 2 million Koreans now use the service to watch TV on their phones while riding trains and buses.

Based on broadband penetration, South Korea is by far the world’s top broadband user with nearly 90 percent of households online. Several small, economically vibrant and densely populated states are also high on the list such as Hong Kong, Monaco and Macau.

The U.S. – with broadband penetration at just under 53 percent – is No. 24.

Penetration in China, meanwhile, is 14.35 percent. In India, which is often mentioned in the same breath as China in discussions of emerging markets, broadband penetration stands at just 1.15 percent of the country’s estimated 200 million households.

They are kidding themselves when it comes to buying off on overhyped municipal solutions that are touted by those who aren’t network infrastructure experts. They are succumbing to lobbyists who want to protect touch-tone in the era of the iPhone.

Carlinism: Slogans and hype are no substitute for real network infrastructure.

James Carlini is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University. He is also president of Carlini & Associates. Carlini can be reached at james.carlini@sbcglobal.net or 773-370-1888.
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