Introduction to Public WI-FI Use Cases

Wireless
Sectors	Wireless
Contact	David Witkowski
Topics	Case Studies Case Study Summary Findings & Discussion Considerations for Deploying Municipal IoT Funding Models History of Public WiFi Impacts to Municipal Governments of IoT Networks Internet of Things Introduction to Public WI-FI Use Cases Legal Issues Marketing & Outreach Practical Guide: Deploying an IoT Network Practical Guide: IoT Cybersecurity & Privacy Procurement Project Management Technology Strategy The Current State of Municipal IoT Deployments Wireless Blueprint

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The dreams and aspirations of a municipal Wi-Fi system aren’t new: provide free, high-speed internet to your community, close the digital divide, shrink the homework gap, and give consumers a free, public option for internet service. It’s not hard to see why the concept has remained so popular over the years. Municipal Wi-Fi projects date back nearly two decades. As early as 1999 Metricom was offering a 28.8 kbps commercial service in most of the San Francisco Bay Area, and a few years later they launched a blisteringly-fast (for the time) service with 128 kbps – comparable to the copper-pair ISDN data service which many startup companies used for what was then considered broadband. In parallel, there was a growing desire to provide Wi-Fi data as a public service. One of the first high-profile public projects came in 2005, when the City and County of San Francisco, CA issued a Request for Information for the deployment of a city-wide wireless broadband network.

In 2006, EarthLink & Google, by proposing a unique, strategic partnership, were awarded the contract. Using the same wireless network, Google would offer free, 300 kilobits-per-second service, while EarthLink, an internet service provider transitioning from the dial-up modem to broadband era, would offer a faster, premium service of 1 megabit per second for US$20/month. The cost to the city would be zero, which was assuredly music to city officials’ ears. By this time, Google was already offering free Wi-Fi service in its hometown of Mountain View, CA and EarthLink had struck agreements with Philadelphia and other cities. Many others quickly followed suit as Chicago; Portland, Oregon; Minneapolis and signed similar deals with EarthLink, Metricom, Metro-Fi, and other providers. In fact, by one count, over 200 municipalities had announced projects by the middle of 2006. Yet by 2007, the San Francisco project was dead along with many more. EarthLink’s model proved to be a failure. Metro-Fi and Metricom devices were left stranded on city poles, leaving municipal public works crews to clean them up and foot the bill for the removal cost. Meanwhile, Google’s free Wi-Fi in Mountain View, according to one insider we spoke with, was by then foundering.

Analysis of What Went Wrong

Much has been written on the death of municipal Wi-Fi. Eric M. Fraser, a legal scholar, pointed to Wi-Fi technology itself as the problem, citing three factors: “imperfect frequency, congestion within the frequency bands, and limited signal strength” as the main causes. These factors, he argued, resulted in signal degradation over short distances and when passing through “trees, cars, walls, windows, and household furniture”; thus, connections were unreliable and the cost to build out a network that would overcome this (which would require tremendous access point density in the architectural design of the network) was thus cost-prohibitiveWi-Fi also lacks an intrinsic authentication method, and does not have a handoff mechanism to allow users to move between access points without disruption to the connection.

Tim Wu – famous for coining the phrase “net neutrality” – blamed cities for turning over muni Wi-Fi networks to private partners that needed to generate profits in order to be sustainable. In 2007, he argued with “typical configurations…municipal wireless connections are slower, not dramatically cheaper, and by their nature less reliable than existing internet services,” thus no one would pay for it.

Another factor is simply market readiness. In 2005-2007, end users were much less likely to know how to associate to a public Wi-Fi network, much less even think it might be doable or have a reason to connect.

Public Wi-Fi Renaissance

While things looked bleak in 2007, municipal Wi-Fi never truly died. In cases where the city itself became the “anchor tenant” on the system (i.e., the city uses the network for cost reductions and to increase operational efficiency), municipal Wi-Fi networks were able to sustain and do quite well.

Meanwhile, the dreams of achieving ubiquitous, free connectivity have not only survived intact, but today are thriving all over the world. This is because the situation is dramatically different now and much more favorable for Public Wi-Fi deployments. This has occurred for several reasons. For one, Wi-Fi has become a mature, recognizable, and reliable technology with many companies building powerful and affordable enterprise-grade solutions and systems. Wi-Fi technology itself has greatly improved, particularly with the release of 802.11AC.11 This is the fifth generation of Wi-Fi technology and provides gigabit speeds and excellent range. Mesh networking has made outdoor buildouts cost-effective and achievable. At the same time, with mobile devices flourishing since the release of the first iPhone in 2007, people all over the world have become familiar with Wi-Fi and are confident in its basic ability to effectively deliver wireless internet connectivity. In fact, Wi-Fi plays a critical role in internet connectivity. One study forecasts that more than 49% of the world’s internet traffic will be transmitted on Wi-Fi technology by 2020.12 And it’s not just for humans. As the Internet of Things (IoT) advances, Wi-Fi will play in also key role in connectivity and backhaul for machine-to-machine (M2M) systems.13 Lastly, municipalities have learned from the lessons of the past. Some are exploring breakthrough business models and public-private partnerships, while others are successfully justifying expenditures from the general fund to build and maintain Wi-Fi systems. In this way, Public Wi-Fi has emerged from the ashes of Muni Wi-Fi and there is no better time than today to consider building public Wi-Fi..

Digital Inclusion

This is often identified as one of the most important reasons for implementing a Public Wi-Fi solution. Digital inclusion - or reducing the digital divide - is also viewed as “Creating a more digitally connected community” and includes:

• Underserved communities/areas
  • Economically disadvantaged
• Rural and remote areas with limited telecommunications infrastructure
• Schools, primarily K-12
• Programs within the community
  • eHealth services
  • Community Centers (youth, senior, cultural, etc.)

Where cities/municipalities have incorporated a strategy for deploying a Public Wi-Fi solution to address this use case, the elements of consideration and planning are significant in terms of:

• Funding - Where are there opportunity for funding vehicles
• Best Practice - What is the best way to deploy and what model should be adopted
• Service level delivery - What service level and performance should be expected
• Security - What is the security model and what level of responsibility does the city/municipality hold and what is the policy
• Governance, accountability, overall policy and cost
• O&M (Operation and Management) - Who is responsible for operating, managing and maintaining the network and services

Under the use case of Digital Inclusion there are several service level offerings that any city/municipality could consider, including:

• Unified School District:
  • Ensuring that the schools and libraries have connected access to the internet for the purpose of education, students doing their homework etc.
• Underserved communities and programs:
  • Includes issuing devices (PCs, laptops, etc.) as the rollout takes place.
  • Includes getting individuals that are connected, but have no data plan.
  • Donations from Private/Public partnerships.
  • Training and Adoption.
• Improve digital literacy
• Cybersecurity and risk mitigation

There should also be metrics in place to determine the measure of success. Some metrics that could be considered are:

• Cost to deliver services to the schools and communities.
• Improved educational outcomes - Test score improvements.
• Economic mobility - (Growth in jobs or individuals employed due to the connected access).
• Improved citizen experience due to the city delivered services - Improved community

involvement and citizen satisfaction.

Funding

Funding vehicles will predominantly be covered under the Finance section of the blueprint document. However, for consideration:

• e-Rate programs have been used by other cities and municipalities as a means of satisfying this use case.
• Private/Public partnerships via donation programs for hardware and services.
• Leveraging existing city Wi-Fi networks and fiber as a means of offsetting cost.
• HUD and or FCC Universal Service Funds may be available to fund deployments in lower income, under-served communities.

Economic Development

High on the list for many municipalities is using Public Wi-Fi to promote and economic development. Building Wi-Fi networks in high-density public indoor and outdoor spaces provides an additional attraction to draw people to these locations. Here are some examples of how Public Wi-Fi can contribute to economic development efforts:

• Downtown areas – Many Public Wi-Fi projects start with downtown cores given their proximity to nearby businesses (e.g., coffee shops, restaurants, cafes, etc.) and their high density of foot traffic. Surrounding businesses can promote the Wi-Fi networks as a benefit for patrons.
• Plazas – Like downtown spaces, outdoor plazas are a prime location for Public Wi-Fi systems
• Tourist Attractions – In many cases, Public Wi-Fi can enhance tourist destinations by providing tourists with an amenity to use while visiting. These efforts can be combined with business groups, such as the Chamber of Commerce, etc. to promote these locations.
• Business Parks – Wi-Fi in business parks can be an attraction for new businesses as the outdoor spaces around the offices can be used by employees for leisure making the location a desirable work site.

Public Safety

Cities could elect to deploy Public Safety services over a Public Wi-Fi network reserving bandwidth and specific frequency and channel allocations such that they are not “publicly accessible” (i.e., only authorized devices can access the network). The services on these secure public safety networks can include, but are not limited to:

• Connected lighting - In several areas of the city there are safety issues related to poor lighting conditions and leveraging the Public Wi-Fi network to connect the lights improves safety in these areas e.g.:
  • Parking lots
  • Parking garages
  • On and off-street parking locations
• Reduced crime and or crime prevention
• Improved citizen satisfaction - Citizens feel less vulnerable to crimes.
• Image sensors - Connecting image sensors to the Public Wi-Fi network for the city provides benefits of public safety by way of “Security”. Image sensors are becoming more and more commodity items that can serve to deter crime, afford the city an opportunity to view crimes and other issues in near real-time as opposed to forensically.
  • Likewise, could be used to inform first responders as to where emergency situations are located, and allow a more effective and efficient response.
  • Image sensors could also be leveraged to provide insight to other neighborhood crimes such as:
    • Loitering
    • Graffiti
    • Vehicle intrusion

In addition, public safety Wi-Fi systems can be used as alternative communication systems for public safety professionals, such as police and fire fighters. In these cases, devices can connect to these networks and send secured transmissions to City Hall and other locations.

Public Notifications

An emerging use case for Public Wi-Fi infrastructure is public notifications and other helpful services. These are best exemplified by the LinkNYC system, which uses kiosks as both digital way-finding devices and Wi-Fi hotspots, while also providing advertising and revenue opportunities.

• Digital Signage - Providing various city services;
  • Wayfinding - Providing citizens city information such as;
    • Parking
    • Festival occupancy - How crowded is a venue or city location
• Other notification types
  • Emergency services
  • City engaged responses - Twitter feeds and other citywide notifications
• Kiosks
  • Interactive digital signage e.g. Sidewalk labs kiosks that provide citywide information
• Public transportation

Enhanced Municipal Services & Emerging Use Cases

Use cases for Wi-Fi extend beyond the common sited cases above. Here are some additional areas where Wi-Fi is being used as a communications system for municipal services.

• Smart Grid
  • Demand response and backhaul for other Smart Grid solutions and transport.
• IoT Backhaul
  • With modern Internet of Things networks, Wi-Fi is frequently becoming a cost-effective and useful technology for backhaul.
• Traffic monitoring
  • Vision zero initiatives - Monitoring and reducing collisions at intersections.
  • Improvements to traffic systems, car counting down city corridors to aid in congestion management.
• Tracking - Pedestrian, Bicycle, Vehicle
  • Counting for the purpose of crowd detection and management.
  • Various location based services e.g. Bike programs and where the bikes are or have been.
• Layered services - Pub/Gov/Others

Key Takeaways

There are many use-cases for Public Wi-Fi. It is important to consider the goals and desired outcomes while still in the planning phase. Here are some key points to consider.

• Always consider the additional applications that can be placed a Wi-Fi network.
• Digital Inclusion is often cited as a reason for Public Wi-Fi; to be successful look to partner with schools and other institutions in your community who will benefit from the system.
• Just because its’s called “Public Wi-Fi,” does not mean that there cannot be "Private" elements that serve city or municipal initiatives (i.e., secured public safety networks, etc.)
• There are many emerging use-cases that can be explored, such as public notifications, wayfinding, advertising (i.e., revenue), smart grid, traffic monitoring, and more. Find out what is the most important for your community and start researching there.
• Having a vision, strategy and an execution plan will be critical in the success of your program.
• Make sure that you have a roadmap for future applications and proper maintenance.