Hundreds of thousands of dollars in public resources
are being
deployed to bring Wi-Fi to downtown Springfield, without competitive bids
to ensure that the planned system is the best — and cheapest —
available. The bulk of the public subsidy is coming in the form
of $380,000 worth of signal transmitters that being donated by the state,
which acquired them as bonuses on purchases of computer equipment from
Cisco Systems. The private sector is also interested. The Southern
Illinois School of Medicine plans to contribute $5,000 toward maintenance
and administration costs, even though the system won’t serve the
school. Deborah Seale, executive director of telehealth at the medical
school, says that the school expects to get a link to its Web site on the
system’s home page, which might attract potential students and
employees. The State Journal-Register has also said that it may become a sponsor. Just how
much the newspaper would contribute and what it would receive in return
aren’t clear, given that there are no formal procedures to decide how
space on the system’s home page would be allocated and what it might
cost sponsors. The 44 state-owned transmitters could be deployed
anywhere. “We just felt like Springfield would make good sense for
everyone,” says Carolyn Brown Hodge, director of rural affairs for
Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn. “It’s the state capital. The [Abraham
Lincoln Presidential Library and] Museum has set records for
tourism.”
Beyond state-owned hardware, the lieutenant
governor’s office next week expects to formally award $20,000 to
Downtown Springfield Inc., a group of business interests that has been
working with the lieutenant governor’s office for more than a year to
bring a hotspot to downtown. The city of Springfield last week agreed to
install equipment on city-owned traffic poles. City officials say they have
no installation schedule, but Hodge predicts that the system will go into
operation next month, much sooner than anyone expected before the city
agreed to allow transmitters on its poles. Even before going into operation, the system is
drawing fire. Ward 1 Ald. Frank Edwards, who wants a citywide system,
wonders why no bids were solicited to build the downtown hotspot. He also
complains that the proposed system — which is being designed for
tourists, not Springfield residents — is a far cry from state of the
art, and he criticizes the mayor’s office for not taking a stronger
stand in favor of affordable Wi-Fi and providing leadership to make it
happen. “We’ve got the Flintstones in charge of
building automobiles,” he says. The mayor’s office, meanwhile, remains in
wait-and-see mode, content to let others take the lead in spreading
affordable broadband service in the city. “We can consider this more of a pilot project
to see how it goes,” says James Donelan, executive assistant to Mayor
Tim Davlin. “I think we need to leave the door open for this vision
and continue the process and see where it goes.”
System planners who have pondered charging for
service after a week or two of free access are now considering limiting
users to two hours of access per day. Call it fair-weather Wi-Fi: The
signal will only work outside. Even telecom companies, which stand to lose
business to a free system, think that’s odd. “What happens the other nine months of the year
when it’s not nice out?” asks Rick Fox, an AT&T spokesman. On the other side of the issue is Sascha Meinrath, an
Urbana digital activist who’s quick to characterize
telecommunications companies as greedy corporations that put profits ahead
of providing affordable access to the Internet. In this case, however, he
agrees with Fox. “Wow, this is fairly silly,” Meinrath
says. “If they lower the power so that it doesn’t go through
walls, they’re guaranteeing that outside connectivity will be full of
dead spots; if they transmit at power levels that ensure outside
connectivity, free wireless will be available inside locations close to the
wireless nodes. Mark my words, by promising the coverage they have, the
network deployers have all but guaranteed huge headaches down the
road.”
Backers of the system say that it will be designed
for tourists, not city residents, and they don’t want the free system
to compete with existing Internet-service providers. They’ve also
said that they don’t want the system to supplant Wi-Fi already
offered by some businesses. At least one downtown business doesn’t object
to a free public system with unlimited access. A system that kicks users off after two hours and
makes them go outside doesn’t make any sense, says Jeff Berendt,
operating partner of the Andiamo! restaurant and coffee shop. “I
think that would be a waste — where are you going to use it?”
Berendt says. Andiamo! installed a Wi-Fi system about 18 months ago; it was
so cheap that the decision was “a no-brainer,” Berendt says.
It’s a convenience for customers, he says, but he doesn’t
believe it is a big contributor to his business, and he doesn’t see a
public system as a threat. About 20 customers a day get online, Berendt
says. “Some people sit here all day,” he says. The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency recently
started hotspots at the presidential library and museum, the Old State
Capitol and the Illinois State Journal Building where the agency is
headquartered. Access is free, but not so at the Hilton Springfield and the
President Abraham Lincoln Hotel, which charge guests for service. The telecommunications industry is asking why no bids
were solicited for a system being built with public resources. Hanson
Information Systems, a member of Downtown Springfield Inc., is engineering
the system and will administer it for at least one year. Hanson also sells
Internet access, charging $20 a month for residential dial-up service,
according to the company Web site. Victoria Clemons, executive director of Downtown
Springfield Inc., says Hanson helped from the very beginning. “Hanson
wrote the original [state] grant for Downtown Springfield Incorporated as
one of our members, as a courtesy to us,” she says. “They just
kind of took the lead on that.”
Doug Dougherty, president of the Illinois
Telecommunications Association, says bids should have been solicited. “I don’t know what the, quote, deal
is,” says Dougherty, whose association is also a member of Downtown
Springfield, “but it seems to be sole-sourced. I have nothing against
Hanson, but when you sole-source something like this, you’re
precluding some other entity from having a better idea of how it would
work.”
Fox says AT&T is always interested when
governments solicit bids to build Wi-Fi networks. The company is now
considering a project to bring Wi-Fi to Chicago, he notes. “We are
willing to work with municipalities,” he says. That’s certainly a different stance than the
one taken by SBC, which AT&T recently bought out, when the state and
downtown boosters first asked the company to get involved, Hodge and
Clemons recall. They say they heard nothing from company officials who
attended at least one meeting of a committee that’s planning the
downtown hotspot. “They were given every chance,” Hodge
says. “They came into my office. We said we’d be more than
happy to take a plan from them. They offered no help at all.”
Still, neither the city nor the state nor anyone else
has issued a formal request for proposals to stimulate competition and help
ensure that interested companies have a chance to build a system. Edwards
wonders why. He notes that backers have said that they don’t want to
hurt existing Internet-service providers. “On the one hand, you’re saying you
don’t want to offend anyone; on the other hand, you’re not
letting them bid on stuff,” he says. “The way they’re
doing it makes absolutely no sense. There’s other providers out
there. Here’s something where somebody may be into it for their own
deal.”
Edwards is also upset that there has been no
communication or coordination between the downtown group and a recently
formed ad hoc committee that is exploring ways to bring affordable Wi-Fi to
the entire city. He says that the mayor, who has sent representatives to
meetings of both committees, should be making sure that the two groups
share information instead of learning what’s happening from the
media. Otherwise, he fears, the ad hoc committee, which held its first
meeting three months, ago will disband. “Why should they volunteer
their time when basically it’s a political football?” Edwards
asks. “This administration is playing games with a good idea that can
really help this city.”
As for engineering the downtown hotspot to discourage
use by city residents, Edwards points out that taxes from city residents
are helping fund the system. “Why can’t I use it when I want to
use it? I’m helping pay for it,” the alderman says. And he
predicts that the city may find itself with a reputation it won’t
enjoy if tourists get kicked off the Internet after just a couple of hours.
“Someone’s right in the middle of their
research and it goes down,” Edwards says. “They’re going
to think we’re a bunch of skinflints — we don’t want to
ruffle feathers. I’d like to know who’s coming up with these
ideas. “Either we’re going to have free
Internet, guys, or we’re not going to have it.”
This article appears in Jun 22-28, 2006.
