The city—and CIO Dianah Neff—take on industry to launch WiFi network in a battle other municipalities are likely to face
Brotherly love isn’t the only thing heating up Philadelphia these days. Just ask the city’s CIO, Dianah Neff.
The city is on the front lines of a pitched battle between the telecommunications industry and municipal governments. Philadelphia is set to launch a citywide low-cost wireless network as an inexpensive way of giving Internet access to underserved communities.
With its Wireless Philadelphia initiative, the city expects to become the first major municipality in the nation to deploy WiFi citywide. The project calls for rolling out a mesh network based on the IEEE 802.11b/g standard. But representatives of the telecommunications industry argue not only that such initiatives will hamper technology and competition, but also that government-run networks will help only well-wired professionals—not the underprivileged.
No sooner did Philadelphia name members to the project’s executive committee last August than state legislators pushed through a bill to block the initiative.
“The wireless industry saw it as competition. We see it as choice,” Neff said.
The Pennsylvania Telecommunications Act, House Bill 30, had been lying dormant for 18 months, Neff said. “Then lo and behold, it gets passed right when the Philadelphia WiFi project is announced,” she said.
The act forbids any “political subdivision” or entity created by one—such as a local government or government-created nonprofit—from providing any telecommunications service to the public for a fee. At the time, Philadelphia’s plan was for free WiFi service, but the city also had said it might charge a small fee as it rolled out the network citywide.
By appealing to the network’s likely users, Philadelphia managed to negotiate a waiver of HB 30 for the city. “It was based on a grass-roots effort,” Neff said.
More than 3,000 people and businesses called or sent e-mail to Gov. Edward G. Rendell asking that the initiative go forward.
As a result, the city is set to begin work on Wireless Philadelphia this summer and finish by the end of next summer, Neff said.
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