The Unbearable Plight of Wireless-less-ness

WiFi Philadelphia was supposed to be the best thing ever. So far, it's not. Is there hope?

by Katherine Silkaitis

	print	email	reply	rss feed

Published: Nov 7, 2007

Illustration by Kris Chau

One should not have to stand in the median of Spring Garden Street to get a wireless signal. But after Laris Kreslins, 32, tried in vain to get a signal inside the Latvian Society, at Seventh and Spring Garden streets, he was forced to walk farther and farther outside the building. All this while he was on the phone with customer support for EarthLink, the wireless provider, which insisted that his locale did receive service.

Kreslins isn't the only customer who's had trouble with EarthLink's technical service and customer support. Problems stretch from South Philly to West Philly; even Love Park, one of the free "hot spots" the city offers, has been caught in the web of nonconnectivity.

The City of Philadelphia's decision in 2004 to become the nation's first wireless city was met with excitement and anticipation. But since then, excitement has dwindled and been replaced by frustration, anger and ambivalence toward a system that doesn't seem to work as well as it should. If it works at all.

Chris Bell, 30, lives in South Philly near Ninth and Dickinson and signed up for the service when he moved from his old apartment in July. Before signing up, Bell said he noticed there were places in his apartment where he could pick up EarthLink's signal with his laptop. He called EarthLink, set up his account and received his password and ID — the additional router EarthLink recommended would be arriving in a couple of days. When he couldn't log on immediately, he said he thought it was because he needed the router.

But even with the router, Bell couldn't get online. "Then I made my first angry call to technical support," he said. After bouncing between tech support and customer service, EarthLink finally told him it was "experiencing outages in Philadelphia" but had no more details to give him. He never got service and says he plugs in the router every couple of weeks to see if anything has improved.

Even the most plugged-in can't plug in. Back in mid-October, City Councilman Frank Rizzo said he went to Love Park with his laptop "to enjoy a few minutes of relaxation." But the Web-savvy politician had difficulty connecting, even with the support of the city's IT team. "I'm pretty good with this stuff and I can imagine how some of the other subscribers are having difficulty," Rizzo said. He resolved the problem using "a combination of our city IT people, who then engaged EarthLink, and a representative of EarthLink eventually had to straighten out some of the glitches."

Is the city's once-visionary approach to wireless technology now nothing more than a collection of unhappy customers? From one point of view, it's even more troubling than that. After all, the company responsible for building the network and maintaining it for the next 10 years has all but bailed out of the wireless business.

In 2004, Mayor John Street made the announcement that Philadelphia was going to become the first large city in the United States to provide citywide wireless access. The city garnered nationwide coverage for its ambition; in September of that year, The New York Times summarized: "Forget cheese steaks, cream cheese and brotherly love. Philadelphia wants to be known as the city of laptops."

EarthLink began the project by focusing on a 15-square-mile proof-of-concept area (POC), which would be completed and calibrated before construction for the rest of the city would begin. The company ran into its first unexpected obstacle when it needed twice as many "nodes" — pieces of equipment that broadcast the WiFi signal — in the POC as originally estimated. Early figures placed the number at 20 to 25 nodes per square mile, but to reach the download speeds dictated in the contract EarthLink signed with the city, the average needed in the city is 42 per square mile. While the POC was designed to identify unexpected issues such as this before citywide construction began, it was nonetheless an unwelcome surprise that would significantly increase the cost of the project for EarthLink.

Then there were the complaints with both EarthLink's technology and its customer service, as consumers have had difficulty connecting to the network and encountered problems trying to get help from EarthLink's customer support.

This past August, EarthLink made an announcement that caused some cities to rethink the value and validity of WiFi networks. The company was undertaking a corporate restructuring — which eliminated 900 employees, including the head of EarthLink's Municipal Wireless division. The company also announced it was eliminating that division entirely; would no longer take part in future markets; and was withdrawing from already-existing plans. It pulled out of San Francisco's contract, which the city's board of directors was set to vote on only a couple of weeks later, and paid a $5 million fine to the City of Houston for missing a deadline. (EarthLink now has a nine-month window to decide whether it will continue to work with Houston.) Despite these recent developments, EarthLink — and Wireless Philadelphia, the nonprofit charged with spearheading Philadelphia's push to make the Internet accessible to everyone — has maintained that the company is not abandoning the city.

"We fully expect that EarthLink will continue to meet all of its contractual obligations," said Wireless Philadelphia Chief Executive Officer Greg Goldman. There's a plan in place for completing the 135-square-mile network by the end of the year, with far Northeast and Northwest Philly last on the list.

Within the last few years, municipalities have started to explore WiFi as an option for a number of purposes: for public-safety use by fire and police departments; for increased productivity in city jobs that require back-and-forth between working on-site and returning to the office to file reports; to entice business and tourists; and to help bridge the "digital divide," the gap between residents who have Internet access and those who don't.

Using WiFi over a large area poses certain problems that you don't run into in your one-bedroom apartment. To blanket miles and miles in wireless Internet, cities must use three tools: backhaul, routers and nodes. Backhaul is the fiber-optic line that runs through the city. Routers broadcast Internet to the many nodes, to which your computer connects. When you go online, the process is reversed: The signal bounces from node to node until it finds a router and is able to connect to the Internet via the backhaul. Pretty decent work-around for a technology that wasn't meant to work outside your living room.

The other problem for municipal WiFi lies in topography and the nature of cities: buildings, trees and hills. A WiFi signal doesn't conform to the sines and cosines of city landscape. This is overcome by installing enough nodes so that no matter where you are, your computer should have a clear signal to one of them, which will bounce your signal around until it finds a router with a direct connection to the Internet. But those nodes come at a price.

So how well does this technology work in Philadelphia? Depending on whom you ask, either very well for its maturity, or not well at all. The initiative faces dual expectations: the over-arching progress of the project and its role in the nationwide WiFi movement; and the individual consumers who are concerned with the performance of the product they purchased.

Philadelphia took what Chief Information Officer Terry Phillis calls a "visionary" step. As the first major city in the nation to declare wireless access a priority, Philadelphia is venturing into territory for which there are no best practices. There's no like-sized city to critique and no existing plan to personalize. EarthLink took these same risks with no established business plan for this market and a technology that's still in its infancy. On the other hand, there are city residents who have signed up and run into one problem after another trying to get service.

EarthLink and the city have begun to address these issues directly. "There is at least some amount of dissatisfaction with either customer support or with the network, but there are reasons for all of those things," Phillis said. "Maybe we haven't done a good enough job communicating to the public that this is a new technology and that people who have signed up for this service are really early adopters."

Goldman of Wireless Philadelphia offered a similar sentiment. "I just ask people to be a little bit patient with us, to let us know what their problems are," he said. "We're not putting our heads in the sand about this."

"I'm pretty good with this stuff and I can imagine how some of the other subscribers are having difficulty," Rizzo said. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Ken Biba, co-founder of the independent consulting firm Novarum, agreed. "It's a new network, and one of the pieces that was not well explained was that people also had problems with DSL and cable initially. The technology has been used, but at the scale and the way it's being used, the technology is effectively one year old."

EarthLink has taken steps to address some of the common complaints. Phillis said the company has changed how it signs up new subscribers, and if the customer is unable to use the EarthLink wireless connection to sign up for service, he or she will be required to purchase the additional router.

Both Phillis and EarthLink's Philadelphia general manager, Tom Cooper, said that by purchasing the router, many customers' problems with connectivity have been solved. "The primary issue in people being unhappy with connectivity is that they're trying to use a laptop to connect from deep inside the building," Cooper said. He explained that while a computer may find the signal, without the additional router, the computer might not have enough power to send the signal back, and therefore, it can't connect.

Part of the problem lies with wireless technology itself. WiFi areas are usually found in bubbles — at homes, apartments, coffee shops, airports, etc. — because most wireless routers, which transmit the Internet signal through the airwaves, aren't able to cover large areas. If your computer is too far from the router, the computer won't have a strong enough signal to pick up.

"Wireless probably is not going to penetrate exterior walls of houses, so indoor coverage will be problematic unless you use additional devices," agreed Biba. "The first step is to make sure you have good outdoor coverage, and then you can begin to think abut indoor coverage. You are getting to a point where outdoor coverage in Philadelphia is beginning to look good."

Phillis said the company has also introduced an "executive escalation path," which will allow EarthLink employees to quickly identify the cause of a customer's dissatisfaction. "They have the ability to do whatever is necessary to keep that customer satisfied and to provide the right kind of service," said Phillis. Most of these changes took place in late October, he said.

While customers' negative experiences have garnered the most attention, EarthLink's Cooper maintained, "A vast majority of our customers are happy. The customer feedback we've gotten, both positive and negative, has really helped us improve the performance of the network and improve customer service." 

EarthLink's reorganization and cuts have made the municipal WiFi industry nervous. Both mainstream press and industry Web sites have picked up stories of cities abandoning or rethinking their plans. EarthLink has assured Mayor Street, however, that the company will finish the network by year's end and maintain Philadelphia's network for the duration of its 10-year contract.

Novarum's Biba said he thinks EarthLink will continue to invest in Philadelphia's network. "EarthLink pulled out of a number of deals and is focusing on the ones that it has. The fact that it is continuing construction, as it is not doing in Houston, for example, suggests to me that EarthLink is going to make sure that [Philadelphia] is as successful as it can be."

Councilman Rizzo, an opponent of the project, stated not long after EarthLink made its August announcement that he plans to hold a meeting with EarthLink officials to appraise the project's status. While no date for such a hearing has been set, Rizzo said he is still pursuing it and expects it to take place now that the November elections are over.

According to San Francisco CIO Chris Vein, "There was, perhaps, a 'market correction' — the issue with EarthLink did cause pause in this whole municipal WiFi discussion, and I'm taking advantage of that pause to rethink and relearn some things and go forward again." But most cities still agree that installing a WiFi network is a priority, and many are looking at Philadelphia to figure out the best way.

Esme Vos, founder of muniwireless.com, which aggregates news and information about municipal WiFi projects worldwide, said, "I think in the beginning when [Philadelphia] just started to deploy, it was considered very, very innovative, but I think because it's gotten into a lot of delays, people are questioning whether that is a model for every community.

"Each community really has to look at its own needs and demographics and the physical topography of the city to determine how it should deploy. That old model of completely doing it throughout the city, 100 percent — it's OK for some, but not for others, and a lot of people are now rethinking that."

In a way, Philadelphia was lucky to get EarthLink to agree to the terms of the contract. Since Philadelphia was EarthLink's first project, the terms of the agreement are favorable toward the city. The contract is also unlikely to be replicated, however, given EarthLink's realization that such terms are not profitable for the company. It requires no financial commitment from the city, and although Phillis said the city is likely to become an EarthLink customer, the contract doesn't require it. Philadelphia's contract also includes a revenue stream to the city in the form of EarthLink's lease of city light and utility poles upon which it installs equipment.

Finally, EarthLink contributes to Wireless Philadelphia, which in turn funds its digital inclusion program, an initiative that seeks to provide affordable equipment and means for those who can't afford Internet services. For the fiscal year that ended in June, EarthLink contributed $1 million, and will contribute the same amount for the following fiscal year. After that, Wireless Philadelphia will receive 5 percent of net access revenue, Goldman said, which is the money the network earns minus what it earns from Digital Inclusion customers, which is already a discounted amount. (The service costs $9.95 per month for customers in the digital inclusion program and $19.95 per month for retail customers. Information on Digital Inclusion eligibility can be found at wirelessphiladelphia.org.)

"I don't think [Philadelphia's EarthLink contract] was luck — I think it was a matter of timing," Phillis said. "We had the visionary idea when no one else did. I do think we were somewhat fortunate to get a company that was looking to expand their presence in this market and that came to us with a good solution for the city." 

The digital divide was an important concept when developing the network, and other cities deploying or considering WiFi have also made it a priority. Goldman characterized the network as "a social mission of digital inclusion."

"I think in the beginning when [Philadelphia] just started to deploy, it was considered very, very innovative," said Vos. "but I think because it's gotten into a lot of delays, people are questioning whether that is a model for every community." (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

In San Francisco, efforts to close the digital divide played a large role in the city's efforts to introduce free wireless. Since EarthLink's pullout, the wireless initiative has been put on hold, although Vein says that San Francisco is still pursuing its vision of free WiFi.

He added that bridging the divide was a tenet of the program's development. "When the mayor made his announcement of 'We will not stop until every San Franciscan has a computer and free access to broadband,' it was within that section of bridging the digital divide. It's very important."

As the city waits for its wireless network to come through, San Francisco's digital inclusion program is pursuing other avenues for closing the divide. "We're still going full steam ahead," said San Francisco digital inclusion project director Emy Tseng. "Even though this particular wireless solution has had a setback, the city still is looking at ways to get Internet access, especially to underserved areas."

Houston also made digital inclusion a primary focus of its WiFi vision, and it had an agreement with EarthLink similar to Philadelphia's. Richard Lewis, Houston's CIO, said the goal was to "create a revenue stream for the city that would be used to bridge the digital divide." The city was to receive a 3 percent share of subscriber revenue, which would be dedicated to the inclusion initiative and the management of the WiFi network. When EarthLink paid Houston the $5 million penalty, the city decided to use a good portion of that money to fund the digital inclusion program, even in the absence of a WiFi network.

Since digital inclusion is central to Philadelphia's network, there are concerns about what will happen to the people it serves if the initiative fails. "The way it would fail is if not enough people use it and there's not enough money to maintain it. I doubt someone would flip the switch and turn it off overnight, but my guess is if it's not carefully cultivated and supported, it would fade away," Biba said, adding, "I don't think it's likely, but it's not impossible."

Goldman said funding will not be a problem, even if the revenue stream from EarthLink declines. "We fully expect that by the time we're hitting our third year, we're going to be in stride, the network is going to be fully built out and we're going to be OK. We intend to be as aggressive as we can in raising dollars from whatever sources we can to pursue that mission," he said. The contract with EarthLink also protects the city from lagging behind in technological advances by stipulating that EarthLink must maintain the network and upgrade it when necessary.

As cities nationwide observe Philadelphia's progress and prepare their own WiFi networks, most view it as a success. It serves to reinforce the goal of a wireless network — connectivity and a means to bridge the digital divide. Despite some customer dissatisfaction, Philadelphia's network ranked in the top five networks nationwide in a survey completed last June by Novarum. Biba, who conducted the survey, said Philadelphia's network improved dramatically from Novarum's initial test about a year earlier.

"It was dramatically better than it was when it had been initially deployed. It was clear that EarthLink had dramatically increased its investment. ... That was really good news. As part of learning about the new technology, we now know that you can make it a whole lot better, and that you can make it even better with more investment."

Biba also said that it's too early to make final judgments on Philadelphia and on the success of municipal WiFi overall. "Philadelphia was a test case. It was one of the first citywide networks to be deployed at this scale for this kind of application. I think that absolutes about whether it can be working as well as it should have to be weighed against the fact that it's breaking new ground."

It's possible that customers like Chris Bell who are unable to connect to EarthLink's network will find improved service as construction continues — Bell plugged in his router a couple of weeks ago and was able to get a signal for the first time. It's to be expected that EarthLink and Wireless Philadelphia are optimistic about the project's future, given their financial investment. But cities like San Francisco look at Philadelphia and judge it to be successful enough to deploy their own networks.

"[WiFi] definitely works, and that's one of the reasons that I remain confident that what the mayor wants to do in San Francisco is right, because there are cases across the country and across the world that suggest that this is doable," Vein said.

There will come a point when critics can look at Philadelphia's network and make accurate criticisms rooted in other cities' experiences. But until then, the city and its residents will have to bide their time with fingers crossed as the construction is completed and EarthLink puts on its finishing touches.

(editorial@citypaper.net)

 

All reader comments are subject to our Terms of Use. By clicking Post Comment, you acknowledge that you have reviewed and agree to these Terms.

Name	please enter your name
Email (will not be published)	please enter a valid email
Comment	please enter a comment
Enter the security code on the right in the textbox below.
Security Code	please enter the code
	Join the City Paper Mailing List