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05/16/2006Los Angeles Catches the Citywide Wi-Fi Wave
The history of city- and countywide Wi-Fi initiatives around the United States has been a rapid one. Curtis Gibbs, Senior Resource Development Officer with the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency, provides a brief look back with an eye toward Los Angeles area initiatives, including his agency’s Web-based portal ExperienceLA.
At the W2i Digital Cities Convention in Los Angeles , May 24–26, 2006, Curt Gibbs will present a city perspective on the technology infrastructure panel with major systems integrators.
 The introduction of wireless mesh technology from the military into consumer applications provided the impetus for cities to consider providing public, citywide Wi-Fi networks, either on their own or in partnership with the private sector. Mesh technology involves using Wi-Fi communication devices (radios) with many redundant connections between them so that every device can communicate with every other device in multiple routing patterns. This contrasts with typical land connections, which simply connect from point A to point B.
Today, examples of the spread of Wi-Fi technology abound in cities across the United States. In January 2003, through its downtown Redevelopment Project, the City of Long Beach, California, helped pioneer government involvement in the provision of Wi-Fi service by lighting up four blocks of Pine Avenue. This trendsetting project garnered national and international publicity and showed how economies of scale could be realized to offer wireless Internet connectivity where people congregate.
In another example later that year, Verge Wireless, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was among the first to use Wi-Fi-mesh technology to establish a one-square-mile Wi-Fi District in Baton Rouge, followed by the New Orleans Convention Center area (Warehouse District), and a 250-camera public surveillance project for public safety purposes in April 2004.
California convention centers offered Wi-Fi service early on, and, realizing a need also existed for adjacent outdoor service, began approaching their respective redevelopment agencies for assistance to help stimulate the interest of local governments to provide Wi-Fi as a public service.
In July 2004, Philadelphia city officials announced that they would deploy a citywide Wi-Fi network to address the lack of broadband coverage, achieve telecommunication cost savings, increase productivity for mobile workers and address digital-divide issues and economic development goals. The news sparked a wave of RFPs throughout the United States, as other major cities sought to provide similar services. In the fall of 2005, Philadelphia awarded a citywide contract to a consortium led by EarthLink.
Google, seeing opportunities in an advertising-based business model, has subsequently teamed with EarthLink and is proposing free Wi-Fi network service for San Francisco at reduced broadband speeds, with a pay version for higher speeds. Google is also working with Mountain View, California, on a citywide municipal-wireless solution, while EarthLink has won bids to offer citywide access in Anaheim and other cities. Emerging service providers MetroFi, NeoReach Wireless, and SprintNextel [Embarq] are all actively pursuing this space and signing major agreements.
Los Angeles Area EffortsDowntown Los Angeles has been experimenting with public Wi-Fi as an enabler for local visitors using ExperienceLA Wi-Fi Pershing Square, which is a public Wi-Fi District covering the park and the surrounding area within a couple of blocks.
This public Wi-Fi district was launched in April 2005 by Verge Wireless as a partnership between the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) of the City of Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks, Department of Water and Power, and the Information Technology Agency. It leverages cultural and destination-related content from more than 1,000 cultural organizations. Visit the award-winning website: ExperienceLA.com.
The site itself is a partnership that includes LA INC (The Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau), the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. The County of Los Angeles Arts Commission requires all grant recipients to post their events in the ExperienceLA database. In May 2006, ExperienceLA.com began testing a beta version of a redesigned Web site.
Free daily Wi-Fi Internet service is provided in and around Pershing Square Park. ExperienceLA Wi-Fi seeks to increase the number of Pershing Square visitors by marketing to downtown residents, workers, and tourists. The wireless network uses Tropos Networks equipment serving mobile users in the park area and surrounding blocks with broadband Internet and an ExperienceLA Wi-Fi Web portal, which contains links to information on the park, the neighborhood, the Community Redevelopment Agency, and other cultural event and destination content from ExperienceLA.com.
Future plans include a paid service option for enhanced or extended services. Other uses that might be tested at the park or adjacent areas include security cameras and broadband connectivity for park events and city personnel.
ExperienceLA Wi-Fi was recently expanded to Van Nuys, one of the city’s San Fernando Valley neighborhoods, by Aiirmesh Communications to augment public Wi-Fi service at the Los Angeles Civic Center Complex in Van Nuys.
The City of Los Angeles is now considering next steps after the release, in April 2005, of its proposed five-year broadband Wi-Fi Plan. Thera Bradshaw, General Manager, Information Technology Agency, City of Los Angeles, explained the broad goal of the proposed plan in a March 2006 interview in Government Technology magazine: “Our plan is to unwire LA, all public facilities within the next three years, and the entire city within five years.”
Additional Southern California cities seeking citywide Wi-Fi include Santa Monica, Burbank, Pasadena, and West Hollywood. Miami-Dade County and other cities and counties throughout the United States are planning municipally owned networks and public-private partnerships to make sure that workers and their citizens receive affordable broadband connectivity.
Each RFP from a major city has built upon a prior one, and each becomes more comprehensive for the services being requested. A major goal of all such programs is to provide the visitor an enhanced experience. The recent, Long Beach, Calif., RFP for citywide Wi-Fi services acknowledges that its business model requires paid service but also asks for free Wi-Fi in selected parks, public spaces, and specified redevelopment corridors and districts, i.e. “Main Streets.”
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Excerpted with permission from the June issue (forthcoming) of Main Street News, the monthly journal of the National Trust Main Street Center .
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