What happened to WiFi?

As the city's wireless plans languish, virtual dreams are put on hold.

by Bruce Schimmel

As dean of media and communication at UArts, Neil Kleinman isn't the kind of guy who takes no for an answer. He dresses like a banker, reasons like a lawyer and speaks with the passion of a true believer. And what he believes most is the democracy inherent in universal WiFi, where everyone has a chance to be heard.

In September, Mayor Street announced that broadband would come to all of Philadelphia. So when Kleinman's students lobbied for Web radio, he quickly found the funds to create a streaming audio service (www.cmacradio.org).

Still, Web radio is only the start for Kleinman. He envisions transforming the Avenue of the Arts into a street of virtual theater. Now, with the city's WiFi plans on hold, so is his dream.

The UArts building opposite the Kimmel on Broad Street is brimming with dancers, musicians and artists. But from the street it looks like an insurance company, says Kleinman. That's why he asked UArts multimedia director Chris Garvin to invent an interactive virtual window that passersby. Kleinman is also lobbying to get every arts organization on the Avenue onto a common network.

But while the mayor struggles between his promise of WiFi to Philly and his apparent need to keep the phone and cable companies happy, this and hundreds of other innovative WiFi dreams will languish.

In December, right on time, the mayor's gold-ribbon panel came up with a blueprint. But suddenly, with no explanation, the Feb. 9 announcement was cancelled. And according to Dianah Neff, the city's chief information officer, the mayor won't say when WiFi will move forward.

The scuttlebutt — whispered by some, screamed by others — is that Comcast or Verizon (or both) got to the mayor. Shortly after Street's WiFi plans were celebrated as a boon for democracy, telephone and cable companies hit back hard.

First, Verizon slammed a midnight special bill through the legislature in Harrisburg that effectively outlawed all municipal WiFi plans in the state except Philly's. And then, telephone and cable companies paid for a report that took specific aim at the city's plans. The report, called "Not in the Public Interest: The Myth of Municipal WiFi Networks," was commissioned by the New Millennium Research Council, a think tank funded in part by telephone and cable companies.

According to Neff, the study was written with no knowledge of the Philly plan now languishing on the mayor's desk. In a remarkable display of candor, several reporters — most notably from The Wall Street Journal — openly ridiculed the report's authors during a press conference. As an unbiased study, it's a sham.

The report still found favor with Councilman Frank Rizzo, who questioned the city's WiFi plan in an article for www.cnet.com. In the piece, Rizzo compares Philadelphia's $11 million wireless network to Boston's $12 billion Big Dig public works project. The councilman then predicts that Philly would face a "Hobson's choice of constantly modernizing and updating the network or sending it to the junkyard," and that "taxpayers would have to be asked to continually subsidize this open-ended proposition."

This is nonsense on both counts. Someone might have told the councilman that with each doubling of speed, the cost is cut in half. And before Rizzo claims that taxpayers would be stuck with the bill, he might have checked with Neff, who helped author the report now gathering dust on the mayor's desk.

In a recent conversation Neff punctured several faulty industry assumptions about the city's pending WiFi service. "Who says that we are funding this with tax-exempt funding?" asks Neff. "Why are [industry supporters] making the assumption that the city will be the sole service provider? We'll be talking about a public/private cooperative."

For now, though, no one but Rizzo is talking, while the mayor mulls over just what that public/private cooperative will look like. Will the city partner with many companies, or just a few? Will they form an agency, like the Parking Authority, that allows a lot of flexibility but a lot less public control?

Neff is deeply suspicious of the current industry players. In her article on www.cnet.com, "Hands Off our Wi-Fi Networks!" Neff wonders aloud, "When was the last time [local telecom carriers] were elected to determine what's best for our communities?" The "truth," Neff continues, "is that the incumbent local exchange carriers [like Verizon] want unregulated monopolies over all telecommunications."

Which brings us to the most likely reason for the mayor's delay. As it stands now, says Neff, the Philadelphia plan could permit people in the street to place phone calls over the Internet. Some industry experts estimate that the Philadelphia plan could cost cable and phone companies some $50 million a year in revenue.

No wonder the mayor is pondering and won't give a deadline. Still, it's time to move ahead, if only to nourish all the dreams of a genuinely democratic mass media.