Muni Wireless Nets More Momentum

The outdoor metro wireless market continues to mature, with more than $3 billion to be spent over the next four years to build and operate public mesh Wi-Fi networks. U.S. municipalities continue to tap mesh networking to attract business travelers and bridge the digital divide, pricing models are beginning to gel, and mesh is being used to support new applications for businesses and public safety.

Interest by U.S. cities and counties in public wireless is exceeding earlier expectations, as the success of many initial municipal network deployments in smaller communities has prompted larger cities and counties to accelerate their own plans, according to Esme Vos, founder of Muniwireless.com, an analyst site.

“In the past year alone, many large U.S. cities have either selected suppliers to begin designing and building municipal networks or have announced firm plans to do so in the near future,” says Vos. Dayton, Ohio; Minneapolis; Portland, Ore.; and San Francisco are just a handful of large cities that have named partners to build and/or operate their citywide networks, with Atlanta, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles among the many that have issued formal RFPs.

In light of the momentum, some incumbent LECs that initially fought the idea of muni Wi-Fi now are going after the market themselves. For instance, AT&T Inc. and MetroFi Inc. won a bid to build a citywide Wi-Fi network for Riverside, Calif., for both public and municipal use. AT&T will deploy the equipment, maintain and upgrade the network (which is expected to go live early in 2007), and will handle all customer service operations. It will use its installed base and brand awareness to deepen its service proposition, by adding public wireless broadband as an extension of the existing AT&T DSL and VPN access options. An example: Special offers will give existing AT&T Yahoo! DSL customers monthly access to the citywide broadband Internet access network at a lower rate than others.

Competitive municipal players are thriving, too. Equipment vendor BelAir Networks and US Internet Corp., an ISP, recently announced they will be unwiring the entire city of Minneapolis next year, after winning a competitive bid against high-profile player EarthLink Inc. Meanwhile, the town of Vail, Colo., has awarded service provider CenturyTel the contract to build and operate a municipal Wi-Fi network, powered by SkyPilot Networks Inc. equipment. The ski destination will be the first Colorado city to move ahead with this type of partnership to build a municipal Wi-Fi network. Also, mesh equipment vendor SkyPilot is working with ISP Galaxy Internet Services Inc. to offer free Wi-Fi throughout Boston’s downtown area, consisting of the Quincy Market, City Hall Plaza and Faneuil Hall area. “The downtown locations will help boost economic growth by making the city an even more attractive place to work and visit,” Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said at the ribbon-cutting, summing up the proposition most municipalities see for mesh Wi-Fi.

And, the delicate balancing act between speed, availability and pricing continues. Most deployments include a service provider as the operating entity, rather than the city itself, offering multitier free/paid access approaches, guaranteed throughput rates, and flexible, affordable payment options. These elements are combined in custom ways depending on the city in question. For instance, built into the BelAir/US Internet contract is a 10-year guarantee that consumers will receive inexpensive high-speed Internet access with 1mbps to 3mbps download and upload speeds. The fee for now is set at $19.99 per month.

In Vail, residents, businesses and visitors will be able to get free Internet access by the end of the year, up to 300kbps anywhere in town, in one-hour increments. Faster Internet service with speeds up to 3mbps will be available with pay plans for daily, weekly or monthly access. AT&T’s Riverside users can choose a free advertising-supported tier at 200kbps to 500kbps or higher-speed premium services, including day passes and monthly subscriptions, with speeds up to 1mbps.

As the market matures, more applications beyond public Internet access are being deployed. Mesh networking now is allowing police officers fighting increasing crime rates and decreasing numbers of officers on the streets to utilize applications like remote video surveillance. For instance, video solutions provider Axis Communications is using Firetide Inc.’s mesh technology to enable police departments to view and record suspicious activity remotely from the comfort of their desks, saving manpower as well as preventing false alarms. Police in Haverhill, Mass., already are utilizing the system to fight crime.

New customer targets are emerging in the market, too. Firetide has signed a deal with North American Midway Entertainment LLC, the largest mobile amusement company in the country, to deploy mesh networks for wireless transaction processing at fairgrounds throughout North America. Fair admission gates and attractions, including rides, food and games, now will be enabled with electronic ticketing and point-of-sale terminals, affecting approximately 19 million attendees at more than 130 events annually including 10 of the top 50 fairs in North America, in 19 states and four Canadian provinces.

“We operate mobile amusement parks that pick up and move every couple of weeks,” explains Robert Perkins, executive vice president of North American Midway. “Our electronic ticketing system currently operates in 14 cities across the U.S. and Canada during its nine-month touring season. Everybody on staff is busy during this time, and the network that travels with the crew must be very easy to set up and tear down, and reliable enough to handle high volumes of electronic transactions quickly and securely.”

Wi-Fi mesh also has its sights on the more traditional business market. ClearMesh Networks launched a global Premier Partner Program in the fall, to tackle the demand for Ethernet LAN services. ClearMesh’s Metro Grid technology provides customers with SLA-quality services, it says, making the technology appropriate for large-scale, high-capacity enterprise networks, SMB applications, and Ethernet for MDUs and MTUs in metropolitan areas, which previously had to rely on legacy T1 services.