Philadelphia's Municipal Wireless Experiement

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Philadelphia's Municipal Wireless Experiement

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Councilman Frank Rizzo Jr. (R, At-Large) was angry at Tuesday's municipal wifi meeting at City Hall and rightfully so. His concerns about the state of the ongoing Wireless Philadelphia project, in conjunction with EarthLink, were not being addressed and his concerns are the concerns of the people. Let me just add that the City Council room (City Hall 400) is gorgeous. This was the first time I had attended a City Council hearing and I hope it won't be my last. I got to the meeting at 2.15p, after waiting in line downstairs for a pass, and the meeting was already underway.

While Councilman Brian O'Neill (R, 10th District [NE]) is the chair of the Technology and Information Services committee, it was Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown (D, At-Large) and Councilman Rizzo who did most of the talking while I was there for 90 minutes.

I listened to most of the testimony of the CEO of Wireless Philadelphia, Greg Goldman, the first permanent CEO of the project. He blogged about his, then, upcoming testimony [.pdf]. I wonder if he was prepared to get grilled like he did.

Rizzo asked Goldman if he was aware of the November 17 news that EarthLink would be backing out their municipal wifi initiative (which was followed by an August 29 announcement that it would cut 900 jobs, half its workforce, and close up shop in PA). Goldman said he was aware of the statement, but that he was confident that the current contract would be fulfilled as there was a 10 year agreement in place. According to WiFi Net News, EarthLink must complete the construction of the infrastructure (currently at 75% completion with the final hole being a section between the Schuylkill to Broad St, from Diamond St to Roosevelt Blvd. and the area NW of the Blvd which I'm not sure they're planning on covering), but they are not bound to operate it. Rizzo pressed on and asked about the number of subscribers currently signed up for Wireless Philadelphia. Goldman said that he did not have exact numbers and that under the agreement, EarthLink was not bound to provide specific numbers - pretty nuts, eh? Rizzo asked how that was possible: to enter into a contract with EarthLink and have no idea as to how well the program is going through hard numbers. Goldman said that EarthLink does provide a range, which Rizzo eagerly asked for. "Several thousand" replied Goldman.

Rizzo took that number to mean around 3,000 and was shocked that EarthLink would be okay with sinking $20M worth of infrastructure into a program which had a total of 3,000 subscribers. Rizzo said that it was no wonder EarthLink was pulling up roots all over the country and said that if he was in charge of EarthLink, he'd be awfully troubled by the low numbers. Goldman noted that he did not state 3,000 as the actual number to which Rizzo angrily retorted that "several thousand" to him signifies 2,000 - 3,000 and that he was astounded that EarthLink did not bother to show up for this hearing to speak for themselves.

Rizzo continued his questioning and wondered what was going on as far as advertising the service. He said that since it's initial rollout, he had not seen any advertisements anywhere across the city. Goldman said that there was no formal agreement with EarthLink for advertising, there was no marketing plan in place. This set Rizzo over the top. He suggested that the City consider backing out of the initiative, to pull its name from the project and change the name to something like "EarthLink Wireless" and that he was extremely troubled that the CEO of Wireless Philadelphia couldn't be trusted with the exact numbers of subscribers and that there was no marketing plan whatsoever to increase membership (nuts!). He called the entire ordeal "embarrassing" and I couldn't agree more.

Councilman O'Neill asked about the capabilities of the service. This launched the part of the hearing which showed how poorly the council understood technology. It wasn't at the level of understanding that Sen. Ted Stevens (R, AK) has of the internet's tubes, but it was worrisome. Do they not have some younger staffers or somebody who simply briefed them on how things work? O'Neill asked if the network was sufficient for people to perform basic web surfing and email. Chroist. Could he not have done a little research himself? Goldman replied by saying that the network is capable of 1Mbps speeds which is faster than dial-up and the lower rung of Verizon's DSL plan, but not faster than the full Verizon DSL and Comcast cable networks. He was later corrected by one of his colleagues that the EarthLink service offered 1.5Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds, I'm sure nobody on the panel knew what the hell he was talking about. Rizzo chimed in and asked if the network was capable of streaming audio (doh!). Goldman replied, sheepishly, that yes it was, but not as well as Verizon or Comcast's faster plans could.

Brown asked plenty of questions too, but mainly about internal infrastructure. She was very curious about the makeup of the Board of Directors of the company. Goldman didn't know off the top of his head, but assured the panel that it was diverse in regards to backgrounds and race. Brown drilled it home by saying that a board which reflects the community it serves is more apt to understand the wants and needs of the community it serves.

The project is well short of the expectations laid out in this Inquirer story after the project was well underway in June of this year. EarthLink estimated that they'd have 5,000 subscribers by the end of July 2007 and 12,000 the end of 2007.

I picked up a copy of The Philadelphia Story, a report put together by the New America Foundation on the municipal wireless project. It's a 64 page report which I haven't read, but plan on doing so. You can download a the .pdf here.

More coverage of the meeting from the Daily News.

CORRECTION: Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown was incorrectly identified as Councilwoman Marian Tasco. Ms. Brown was sitting behind Ms. Tasco's nameplate.