Although Boston has not set plans to provide free, city-sponsored wireless internet as some other cities have, advocates for such a program said they want to implement free wireless on an area-by-area basis and expand the city’s existing Wi-Fi program.
Boston already has a wireless system in progress called the Main Streets Wi-Fi Intiative. The purpose of the program is to “help attract and retain visitors to the districts and educate and inform local residents and businesses on the use and applications of wireless technology,” according to the city’s website.
The goal is to have all 19 city districts in the Wi-Fi program running on free wireless access within a year, according to DeWayne Lehman, spokesman for the Department of Neighborhood Development.
Several local organizations, such as Boston Wireless Advocacy Group, a volunteer organization that supports community Wi-Fi networks in Boston, held forums as part of the “Wi-Fi Summit” last spring to seek input from community residents about expanding wireless technology in Boston.
San Francisco, where Google is offering free wireless services, is currently the most influential city because it involves advertising revenue said Michael Oh, CEO of Tech Superpowers, Inc. But Google is only offering speeds of 30 kilobytes per second, compared to Comcast’s four megabytes per second.
Philadelphia has spent more than $10 million over the course of a few years to implement its $15 million wireless project, Oh said. The plan is to create 135 square miles of Wi-Fi, making it the largest Wi-Fi network ever created.
Although Earthlink will help Wireless Philadelphia promote digital inclusion by discounting Philadelphia residents approximately $10 a month, it would charge non-residents nearly twice that amount.
Oh said Boston is more conservative about spending city dollars.
“We’re not going to go out on a limb and see what happens,” he said. Because San Francisco and Philadelphia are the only viable models of city-sponsored Wi-Fi, Oh said that in six months, there may be a more beneficial example for Boston to emulate.
According to Oh, City Councilor James Tobin (Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury) has been the most effective advocate for Wi-Fi in Boston with his recent Wi-fi-Summit Committee. But Oh said more technology experts need to be involved before the plan can be implemented, especially because there is now competition with other cities and the rest of the world.
“We’re falling behind this broadband network, globally,” Oh said.
Tobin said he is “anxiously awaiting” a report conducted by BTS Partners, Inc., a network engineering company, with $25,000 in grant money provided by the Boston Foundation and the Museum of Science.
According to Lehman, the approach is to look at a number of different programs.
“We’re learning as each of our commercial districts come up,” he said. “We learn from the experience of other cities too.”
According to Lehman, the Boston schools were among the first in the nation to be wired to the internet. Currently, all Boston public libraries have free wireless access.
David Trueblood, spokesman for the Boston Foundation, a granting institution for non-profit organizations, said supporting citywide wireless access is a powerful education and job tool. Boston Federation is currently funding projects that bring Wi-Fi to housing developments, including one project in Orchard Park in Roxbury.
Trueblood compared San Francisco’s Wi-Fi project to Boston’s potential plan.
“In many ways, we’re a lot like San Francisco — similar entrepreneurial culture. It’s only a matter of time,” he said.
Trueblood said there are enormous advantages to providing citywide wireless access, including the issue of “digital divide.”
“Since some of the equipment has been fairly expensive, it splits us into two communities — one which typically has a lot of access, and one that doesn’t,” he said. “By going Wi-Fi, it helps us to cross the divide so that everybody has access to these tools that are critical for the economy of the future.”
Trueblood said he is aware of the safety and security issues that come with having a citywide network. Such a network makes people more susceptible to everything from glitches to malice, he said.
“One of the issues of Greater Boston is that the 75 colleges and universities … are a powerful asset for this region, and we need to be at the cutting edge, both in terms of how people perceive us, and having these kinds of tools,” he added.
Trueblood said he would love to see the city become completely wireless someday.
According to Rodney Brown editor of Web IT, a Boston-area business magazine, there is little municipal wireless access in this area. Brown said Waltham-based Airpath Wireless, Inc. has entered into digital communities with Cisco Systems, Inc. and Dell, and is trying to bring wireless connectivity around the globe. But he does not think it will be free.
College of Arts and Sciences senior and computer science major Daniel Hayes, who works for Juniper Networks in Westford, Cisco’s main competitor, said he would like free wireless access, but has concerns about network security.
“If such a wireless network is deployed, the main concern is going to be over security,” he said. “Once we’re able to jump over the security hump, everyone will get on board and will demand more and more bandwidth [how much information a given network can handle].”
Hayes explained the issue of speed by comparing original forms of internet network, such as dial-up, to today’s high-speed internet access.
“That is a tremendous jump in bandwidth and is why everything is so much faster,” Hayes said.