Broadband Team/UIUC Public Engagement

Philadelphia, PA

Introduction

Philadelphia’s story is long and intriguing, but unfortunately not one of success, yet. Philadelphia’s first attempt, the Wireless Philadelphia project, took longer than expected and ultimately fell flat. This failure is one we can learn from. It can basically be attributed to the mistake of putting too much faith in one actor, in this case a commercial entity, and not involving the City enough. Since the collapse of Wireless Philadelphia, a second attempt has sprung up, called the Digital Broadband Initiative, which will also be mentioned here.

Wireless Philadelphia

Actors & Origins

Wireless Philadelphia was initiated by the City and Mayor John Street in 2004. Grand plans for a “web-ready” city by 2006 were announced publicly quite early in the game. The City was to create a nonprofit committee to oversee the project (which was called Wireless Philadelphia), and partner with a private company that would fund and build the architecture, and also provide affordable services to the citizens.

A history and analysis of the Wireless Philadelphia project, along with a great interactive timeline, can be seen here at Techically Philly.

In 2006, a partnership with Earthlink was announced. Earthlink pledged $22 million in infrastructure building, 22 free hotspots throughout the city, and 3000 free or reduced-rate user accounts. Building began and was expected to be completed by 2007.

Failure

However, the installation did not go as quickly as anticipated, and before it was completed, Earthlink announced that they wanted to withdraw from the contract. This might be attributed to poor planning — Apparently, they did not anticpate until midway through the construction that additional hardware ($70 signal boosters) would be needed all over the city for indoor usage of the wireless signals. Earthlink perhaps did not want to shoulder the cost, and the project was apparently not working out financially for them in other ways. Citing losses, they terminated the contract and were able to be penalized no more than $1 million for doing so.

Lessons

This is an example that should incite one to caution when allotting too much responsibility to one entity, particularly a private enterprise with other interests and assets to protect. Too much of the planning and execution was left up to Earthlink. Too many hopes were invested in Earthlink coming through, and it didn’t happen. To cite the above Technically Philly article (THIS IS KEY, APPLICABLE TO ESL):

“…one of the biggest downfalls there, is [the thought] that we can get something for nothing, that we can rely on one organization to solve the communication needs of Philadelphia without really recognizing that government has to play a role, particularly in serving the poorest residents which aren’t a profit center for corporations,” says Beth McConnell, Executive Director of Media & Democracy Coalition, a broadband inclusion advocacy group.“It was a mistake to essentially rule out and eliminate government investment and involvement. It’s easier for us to avoid that mistake now when there’s federal money available, but I also think that in terms of vision for economic development, what means for the city looking in investing in technology is something the city should do whether the times are tight or not,” McConnell adds.

Additionally, in terms of public relations, it was probably a mistake for the project to be announced so early and with such confidence. A timeline for completion was announced at least twice: First it was to be completed by 2006, then by 2007. Then, it was “quietly” pushed to early 2008. This looks bad to the public (and potential partners) and could taint current ongoing efforts in the city (see below in this document).

“Fear remains that the broken promises of Wireless Philadelphia haven’t been forgotten, says California-based broadband consultant Craig Settles, considering how much the initiaitive was touted to a city not known for high expectations.” (Techincally Philly)

Network Acquisition

At the time when Earthlink withdrew, it had already completed enough of the infrastructure (in the form of wireless high sites) to cover 65-80% of the city. This existing equipment was bought up in mid 2008 by a group of interested investors under the name Network Acquisition LLC. Network Acquisition began offering free service immediately to anyone who could access the network (although it was still patchy and not always very fast), which it supported by charging for combination wired/wireless packages. It was clear that the network was not functioning well enough or pervasively enough to be considered complete, so Network Acquisition began building upon it.

In the process of building it out, gaps that could be considered shoddy were found in Earthlink’s work. According to this article about Network Acquisition’s expansion of the network, problems of low, incomplete or no connectivity “are partially because EarthLink deployed the nodes that establish the network based on information from a computer program and didn’t take into account how the deployment was actually working.” Conversely, Network Acquisition is actually sending people out into the field to determine how to get the best coverage. Another Thumbs Down here goes to the faith placed Earthlink.

It is worth noting that only after these activities did Network Acquisition begin seriously looking into how to make a profit from the network. One could say that it’s a “good thing” a generally benevolent group of investors happened to be present and acted upon their interest in acquiring the network at around the time that Earthlink abandoned it. That sort of chance can’t be counted on always.

Meanwhile, the group Digital Philadelphia changed its focus to “digital inclusion” activities including distributing hardware packages to the underserved. This, at least, is a positive move and better than dissolving completely.

Digital Philadelphia Broadband Initiative

About

The Digital Philadelphia project was begun quite recently, with Chief Technology Officer Allan Frank at the helm. Frank has also been trying to get more organzations involved, including corporate, nonprofit, and public organizations. The plan is to expand upon the existing infrastructure (which would involve negotiations with Network Acquisition), ultimately “bridg[ing] the Internet to unserved and underserved communities by proxy”. Unfortunately, Frank faces the reality that this project “has to pay for itself over time” and won’t be able to provide free access.

Funding

The Digital Philadelphia project intended to use grant money from the federal broadband stimulus package to attain its goals. However, major setbacks recently occured when its proposals were submitted.

In September of 2009, Digital Philadelphia requested a total of $35 million in its proposals. Because of the overwhelming influx of applications, some responsibility for filtering has fallen to individual states. When the proposals were reviewed by the state of Pennyslvania, the heart of the proposal was struck down. The breakdown was as follows:

A $21 million proposal for middle-mile infrastructure was NOT RECOMMENDED
A $14 million proposal for adoption programs was BARELY RECOMMENDED
A $2.3 million proposal for public computing centers was HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

While this represents a serious setback, Chief of Technology Allan Frank is very passionate about seeing the project through and intends to seek funding through other means. The project would not have been sustained in the long term with stimulus money anyway, and another strategy would be needed. Before even submitting the proposal, Frank said, perhaps presciently, of the opportunity, “It forced us to come up with a strategy. This is just the first step to start the conversation.”

Analysis of grant proposal results

Why was the $21 million proposal for infrastructure shot down?

A great analysis comes from broadband business strategist Craig Settles in this Q&A on Technically Philly. He proposes that the “rural bias” is responsible for this failure. This short article is definitely worth reading in its entirety, but here are the biggest points, on why the $21 million failed and the $2.3 for computing centers was “highly recommended”:

“The wild card of this whole thing is the politics involved. What you have, starting in Congress and moving out is a bias toward rural areas. You can hear it in people’s comments, you can see it in how the rules are structured. If you’re in a poor area of Philadelphia, you are closer to a service provider than someone who is in some small township. The people that are reviewing proposals will reflect that bias, and I think that states, to a certain extent, will have a similar bias.”
“If you follow what’s going in Washington, there is an ‘out’ card with computer centers and broadband adoption programs. Those were bones that were thrown to urban areas.
The problem is that that segment is the smallest amount of money available. If you look at the big picture, you have 2,200 people applying for all of the money, and you have a greater number of people applying proportionally for computer centers and broadband adoption than you do for the other proposals. So in that environment, you’re working with the unspoken political undercurrent.”

Unfortunately, this case should be borne in mind when considering East St. Louis’s prospects for receiving stimulus funds.

As a final note, the commercial sector (=Comcast) is now also posing a threat to Digital Philadelphia. See the Technically Philly blog, and the final article listed below in Resources.