Wireless City Models and Mission Data

Updated July 12, 2004 11:25 p.m.

1. Contact Info. Name, phone, email address or more.
2. Finance. Where's the money coming from for start up and for the long haul?
3. Opening screen. Who owns the screen content and layout of the opening or gateway screen when first connected? The city, the wireless vendor, both?
4. Public vs. private. Will some businesses feel imposed upon by citizens taking up private tables in public spaces or will they see business opportunity? Has anyone put up signs that says no wireless computer here please? Is/was this a problem and how did they solve it?
5. Economic mission and impact. What wireless missions are providing what kind of impact?
6. Support. Whose providing support and what kind of support has been needed?
7. Other. e.g., works great, except? And links to web stories about developments in that city.
8. Emerging Rationale for Wi-Fi deployment.

Wireless models and missions - To provide data to update this table you can click this link and then Post Reply or you can send email to houghton@email.wcu.edu

city/committee member collecting data initials	1 Contact Info/leadership	2 Financing	3 Opening screen	4 issues	5 Economic mission & impact	6 How much support and whose supporting	7 Web site stories
(?) = needs data collector
Reems Creek Valley, Asheville area (BH)							news1
downtown Greenville, SC (S.W.)	Joe Milam, Gorillanetworks, 864-449-0998 Arlene Marcley, Assistant to the Mayor, Greenville, 864-467-4590	Gorillanetworks covers the fee ($300 - $400 per month) by getting businesses to place sponsorship ads.	wirelessdowntown.com	Since May 2003, they average 120 - 130 users per week, some are repeat users, some new. Most are students (Furman, Clemson) many are now business professionals enjoying the ability to do online demonstrations for clients or retrieve information to do business while away from the office	network covers an area of four blocks and links additionally to the library another 3 - 4 blocks away from downtown via a wireless point to point system. There are currently 15 free access points.	www.gorillanetworks.com	news1
downtown Spartanburg, SC (?)							news1
Wireless Athens Georgia Zone (WAGz) (B.H.)	David Boardman, New Media Institute boardman@uga.edu, 404-384-1743	university/city/business partnership	yes, with required though free log-in	none	focus on quality of life stimulus by mobile media	university team supports as research project	news1
Atlanta, GA (?)							news1
Chattanooga, TN (?)							news1
Knoxville, TN (?)	so far, no evidence of free wireless net
Shelby, NC	Darrin Hartness, Cleveland County, Schools,Chief Technology Officer, 487-581-1044
Winston-Salem, NC (BH)	Dennis Newman, city CIO, 727-2846, dennisn@cityofws.org	taxes, $15,000; placed on city light poles	no	non-issue	business expansion, community reputation	minimal with no hardware problems in last 16 months	news1 news2
entire Green County, NC Hookerton's downtown operational now	Superintendent of Schools, Steve Mazingo Wavelength, Greenville-based company	$2,500 county taxes for engineering design, subscription ($35 per user)	unknown, in development		educational laptop use, business expansion, community reputation		news1 news2
Mt. Airy, NC	David Bradley, president of the Mount Airy Chamber of Commerce. entrepreneur Mark Spencer (336) 499-0749; spencer@802link.net	18 block area in downtown, $5,000 to get the network started, estimates monthly operating costs at between $300 and $500					news1 news2
Raleigh, NC		Equipment and installation costs for Fayetteville Street Mall will total less than $4,000, and service costs will run about $295 a month.			Fayetteville Street Mall
Durham, NC		Durham expects to pay about $3,000 for equipment and $2,100 a year for service.
Apex, NC	kcarlson@wral.com, Kelcey Carlson , WRAL reporter	BellSouth will cover the costs of monthly service in downtown Apex, where equipment costs and set-up are less than $3,000.					news1
Austin Wireless City Project, TX (?)							news1 news2 news3
Seattle, WA (?)							news1
Jacksonville, FL					attract tourists and help cross digital divide		news1
Long Beach, CA (?)							news1
San Francisco, CA (?)							news1
Portland, Oregon (?)							news1
Spokane, WA (?)							news1 news2
San Jose, CA (?)							news1
Sydney, Australia (?)							news1
New York, NY (?)							news1
Champaign-Urbana Wireless Network (?)		using rooftops of homes to create city "mesh", proof-of-concept project with $18,600 from the city's 2004-2005 fiscal budget plus grants			part of city Media Center		news1 news2
Rio Rancho, N.M	Ken Upcraft, executive vice-president of Usurf America						news1
Philadelphia, PA, 135 mi. sq. area	city's chief information officer, Dianah Neff, Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street, a technology buff who carries a wireless handheld computer everywhere he goes, appointed a 14-member committee, Lev Gonick, chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University, which is spearheading the project and paying for a chunk of it.	city taxes, university funding			be world's largest, serve low-income communities, cheap Wi-Fi phones for neighborhoods where less than 95 percent of residents have home phones,		news1

Emerging Rationale

Why provide free Wi-Fi (computer network wireless) downtown?

From this research above the following below are reasons that others give. Which ones fit our community best?

Opportunities are High

Wireless adds to image of city as hi-tech, current and therefore having a high quality of life which takes advantage of the research showing that workers are increasingly moving to areas where they consider the quality of life high and then looking for jobs and business opportunity.
Wireless encourages visitor and shopper traffic into local businesses under the wireless umbrella.
Wi-fi is seen as valuable in attracting the important 18-34 year old demographic group to the downtown and city a group important as spender of discretional income and to new home construction and new business development.
Wireless technology is increasingly prevalent. Laptops now outsell desktop computers. Over 90% of laptops are now shipping with wireless cards. Nokia is selling a cell phone which also has wi-fi capacity and others will follow. The non-wireless market for PDAs is declining, while wireless capacity with PDAs (handheld computers) is dominating the handheld computer market.
Wi-fi supports the town's strategic plan in general and for the downtown specifically.
Wireless diversifies the economic base and leads to new business growth.
Telecom industry saying that in 3-5 years, wireless will effect our communities like cell phones and wireless will be the infrastructure of choice, therefore the sooner one starts the sooner one can sustain competitive position and use it as economic development tool for useable ideas now.
More importantly for new business growth, community wireless is a stimulant for the creation of previously impossible concepts that serve as seedbed for for new businesses and venture capital.
With the passage of Homeland Security legislation, wi-fi has become an important element of communication for the public safety departments of fire, police and public utilities.
Wireless helps public education in that it can broaden the base of Internet use in a community. That is, it can be used to encourage those without Internet access to try it. Some 20% of U.S. citizens still do not use nor have access to the Internet. What is the percentage in this community?

Penalties are Low

The cost of both startup and overall maintenance of wireless zones is considered overall to be very low.
Wi-fi is a simple extension of existing models for community services, as it fits under the same areas of relevance to the community welfare as tax supported public libraries and public streets.

Back Updated August 12, 2004 4:13 pm. B.H.