Municipal Wi-Fi access spreads

By Dennis Geisinger

Wireless internet service offered by Minneapolis and its business partner, US Internet Wireless, is now available for subscribers in the first two areas of the city that were scheduled for installation, with about 1,000 subscribers already online. Service in the Phase 1 installation area downtown passed a critical test after the 35W bridge collapse in August, keeping communications open for emergency response teams after cellular phone service in the city failed.

“Everyone got on their cell phone,” said Lynn Willenbring, Minneapolis’ chief information officer in the Aug. 27 issue of Government Computer News. “My family was calling too, checking to see if I was OK,” Willenbring said.
The city’s municipal wi-fi network was opened for 12 hours to everyone without charge soon after the emergency began, allowing wi-fi-enabled laptops or other devices to send instant messages, video, photos and email. Wi-Fi-enabled phones could also make voice calls via the network.

After traffic on the network spiked from 1,000 to 6,000 users, US Internet decided to extend the free service to a total of 48 hours after the disaster. Rescue workers unfamiliar with the area were able to reference the city’s Geographical Information Systems and a mapping service was published online to notify the public of alternate routes around the collapsed bridge and perimeter.
“It was a huge learning experience for us,” said program manager for Minneapolis’ wireless initiative, James Farstad. “We were quite pleased with our ability to handle the aftermath of the bridge collapse,” Farstad said.

The Phase 1 area of citywide wi-fi installation includes the downtown area west of the river and the Cedar-Riverside and Seward neighborhoods. According to USI Wireless, installation in the Phase 2 area that includes neighborhoods between Lake Street and 46th Street and 35W and the river has just been completed. Implementing the wireless network by putting up wireless signal transmitters on utility poles and other high-profile structures across six phases or geographical areas of Minneapolis is expected to be completed by the end of the year, according to city officials.

Technical challenges like negotiating signals around the city’s many trees and buildings, providing power to each transmitter mount and ripping up countless sidewalks to replace damaged fiber-optic conduits has slowed the process somewhat, but the those involved with public/private wireless partnership remain confident that the project will stay on schedule.

“We want to give people good expectations that we don’t overshoot,” said Minneapolis Council Member Elizabeth Glidden (DFL-Ward 8). “That’s why ‘end of the year’ is a good, practical goal,” she said.

Glidden has been most involved the community benefits side of realizing affordable wireless internet service for the city, furthering plans for bridging the digital divide by including those who have not had access to the internet.
A Digital Inclusion Fund has been set up to support grants of various sizes, typically ranging from $5,000 to $30,000, for projects or programs that promote technology access and literacy for low-income people, people of color, people with disabilities, immigrants and refugees, displaced workers, seniors, and other new users of technology. The Minneapolis Foundation has been chosen to distribute money for the grants, some $200,000 this year, to nonprofits and public institutions that provide access to technology for these underserved populations.

Proposals that were submitted by a Sept. 14 deadline will be reviewed by an advisory panel composed of community members and notifications about funding decisions will be made in December.

“I’m excited to see how this first round of grant making plays out,” said Glidden. “A lot of the other cities with wi-fi aren’t doing as well as we are in sharing the wealth of this technology,” Glidden said.

Farstad, who has called the advantages that an entire city population connected to the internet will mean to small, local business “microeconomic development on steroids,” sees one clear example as the boon to local advertising.
“Being able to advertise more to those in their own area is a big advantage for small and start-up business,” said Farstad. “It’s certainly more cost effective,” he said.