Boston unplugged

October 5, 2006

THOMAS MENINO wants to make Boston wireless. From park benches or street corners, people would have low-cost access the Internet. Just as Oz is the Emerald City, Boston could become an Internet city, a place where life is enriched by the glow that radiates from a vibrant mix of online services.

The danger is that the city could flub the heavy lifting that it would take to achieve this vision. Still, it's an exciting risk that is worth taking, if it is wisely done.

In an ideal wireless Boston, people would do a lot more than check e-mail. They might take online classes to learn English or earn an MBA. Entrepreneurs could launch small businesses. Public school students who were at home sick could find homework assignments and videos of that day's classes. Tourists could use handheld devices to download information on sightseeing tours.

Menino has three sound goals for wireless service in the city: close the digital divide; encourage economic development; and improve city services.

Under this vision, the system would be built on lampposts, the outsides of buildings, and other structures. Bringing the service inside buildings would involve buying inexpensive equipment. An Internet service provider could offer such devices for free.

Best of all, Boston would avoid the kind of cheap, low-speed connection that's typically offered to users who are paying little or nothing for the service. That means no one would be stuck in the virtual ghetto of long waits for video and other large files to download.

To go wireless, Philadelphia and other cities have opted to work with one company, such as EarthLink or Google. In tech-savvy Silicon Valley, a group of cities has chosen to go wireless with the help of a team: IBM, Cisco Systems, Azulstar, a municipal wireless technology company, and SeaKay, a non profit organization that seeks to use technology and other means to help the non-profit sector function more effectively.

Menino wanted something different. He sent a wireless task force to look at the options, and the members came up with a compelling but untested idea: Have a nonprofit organization run the show. It's a way to keep control of a vital public asset and ensure that it is used for the public good.

The nonprofit would have a dynamic civic mission of bringing the best services to the entire city. It would manage the construction and operation of the wireless system. And it would open the system to all kinds of providers: EarthLink, Verizon, community organizations, major companies, and one-person businesses. Users would log on and find a whole range of options.

Because its mission would focus on the public good. In addition to putting wireless services in neighborhoods where private companies might not go, the nonprofit could help provide laptops and other equipment as well as training on how to use computers, software, and other devices.

As Menino prescribed, a nonprofit could foster improvements in city and state services. Drivers could pay for their parking spots using cellphones instead of parking meters. They would get a message when their time was about to run out, and add more money via the phone instead of running back to the meter. Attendants could monitor the parking electronically, instead of on foot. Firefighters could download the blueprints of burning buildings. Real-time crime information could make it easier to deploy police officers. And instead of playing telephone tag, social workers would order additional services for clients online.

The nonprofit could also work in low-income neighborhoods to help launch new businesses. And partnerships could be formed with community organizations to help existing community businesses expand, creating more revenue and jobs.

The considerable challenge will be creating a nonprofit organization that has the expertise, drive, and diplomacy to do the work. Without this the whole plan would collapse. For now, a skeleton organization is in place, and it is relying on the donated time of task force members. But the nonprofit has to mature very quickly. It needs tech-smart, aggressive leaders who can make a long-term commitment.

Another tough job will be coming up with $16 million to $20 million in start-up capital to build. Menino doesn't want to spend any city or taxpayer money, so it all must be raised privately. The nonprofit would need at least $6 million to get started, according to Joyce Plotkin, a chairwoman of the mayor's wireless task force and president of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council.

This fund-raising call needs foundation, corporate, and individual gifts. Plotkin points out that it could well be an investment for companies that might develop new products to sell on the system.

Any non profit established to take the city wireless should play by strict rules. It should make a binding commitment to provide service in underserved neighborhoods, building on the free wireless that's currently available in all the city's libraries. The nonprofit should hold itself to a rigorous timetable of fund-raising and construction. By mid 2007, there should be a day of reckoning to take stock and shift to plan B if key goals haven't been met.

A well-deployed wireless system could root Boston in the technological promise of the 21st century. Communications would vastly improve. And data -- from vandalism to traffic reports -- could be used in new, productive ways.

As nimbly and quickly as possible, wireless officials will have to learn, act, recover from mistakes, and redeploy. If they can, the city's wireless promise seems strong and virtually boundless.