Citywide wi-fi link considered
Internet access would be virtually everywhere
Several Newton officials are looking into blanketing the city's 18.5 square miles with wireless Internet transmitters, which would make the city one of several places in the nation -- and the only one in Massachusetts -- to offer the service on such a wide scale.
The plan, which an aldermanic committee began discussing last week, would involve mounting routers on telephone poles throughout the city. Anyone within 100 yards of one of the routers would be able to access the Internet using a password. The city would charge about $10 per month to use the service, which could begin to be available in as soon as six months.
Installing the routers throughout the city would cost between $370,000 and $740,000, according to initial estimates.
"I don't think there's a place in this country that has a higher ratio of computers per person," said Alderman Kenneth Parker, who is spearheading the effort. "We have a lot of demand for the Internet in Newton. And wouldn't it be great if people could go sit on a park bench and get online?"
The US Census doesn't track computer usage, but a 2001 survey done by the US Department of Commerce found that nearly nine in 10 households with an annual income of $75,000 or more had a least one computer.
Parker estimated that between 10,000 and 30,000 people would sign up for the service. The money would be used to offset costs of installing and maintaining the network. It would cost the city between $100,000 and $200,000 annually to maintain the service, according to Parker's estimate. In addition to being available to residents and businesses, the system also could be used by police officers and other public-safety officials for accessing crime databases and computers at the police station.
Because the city wouldn't be trying to turn a profit, it would be able to charge much less than the $35 to $50 that residents and businesses now pay to companies like
Marc Goodman, a Comcast spokesman, said he didn't view Newton's move as a threat to the company's business. "Comcast believes that we provide the most value with our high speed Internet service. And we view wi-fi as complementary access and just brings more awareness to our broadband."
But it's unclear whether such a plan would work for Newton. The idea doesn't yet have broad support among city officials, and, to move forward, it would require the Board of Aldermen's endorsement. Parker, who is proposing the measure, also proposed a light ordinance in 1998 that is still in committee. Because the city would be offering a utility -- similar to municipally owned electric and cable companies -- it would also need approval from the state Department of Telecommunications and Energy. Newton's legal staff is looking into the issue, although cities in other parts of the country have not experienced any legal issues.
In addition, officials in the city's Information Technology department said they don't have the staffing to oversee such a major project. They said they just found out about the proposal last week,
"We've lost an employee every year for the past several years, and we're totally swamped," said one of the department's employees, who declined to provide his name. "We're totally swamped. Even finding time to talk about this is tough."
Parker said more employees probably would have to be added to the department.
The city already has several areas, called "hotspots," that offer wireless Internet access, usually for a fee.
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The Newton Free Library offers free wireless Internet access, although the service is contained within the library's walls. Newton South is outfitted for the technology, and City Hall also has wireless access, but requires a password available only to city employees.
Several experts who have been following Internet trends say that widespread efforts like the one Newton is considering could change the fundamental ways that people view communication -- much the way cellphones have revolutionized the ways that people use telephones. Almost all new laptops come with a wireless card. For old laptops, an external card, which is placed in a slot on the side of the computer, can be purchased for less than $50.
"There is an expectation that people are always connected. You can't say, 'I'm leaving the office for six hours; don't bother me,' " said Frank D. Hanzlik, the director of the Wi-Fi Alliance, a nonprofit organization that promotes wireless Internet access. "As a result, the concept of the office is changing, and becoming more nebulous. Now, the office is wherever you happen to be."
At least 70 cities and town have started similar efforts to establish communitywide wireless access, according to Roberta C. Wiggins, a research fellow at the Yankee Group market research firm in Boston. While it's still too early to tell whether the programs will be successful, she said, communities are increasingly taking the plunge.
"There's several converging trends -- the popularity of broadband, the increase of wi-fi capable laptops and PDAs, and towns are trying to improve public safety," she said.
The movement toward wi-fi (which stands for wireless fidelity and is the computer term for wireless access) began when rural towns began to patch together networks because they were being skipped over by companies providing broadband access. Several large cities -- such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta -- caught on and began putting up wireless networks, but only for public safety officials to use.
Other places are starting to market the service on a broader scale, and companies like
Officials in Philadelphia last month announced a $10 million plan to use 18,000 transmitters to transform the city's entire 135 square miles into a wireless Internet hotspot. City officials say the service, scheduled to be completed by June 2006, will be offered for free or at a very low cost. The city plans to spend $1.5 million annually to maintain the system.
Jerusalem next month plans to provide free wireless Internet access in the quarter-mile area surrounding the Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall -- the Israeli capital's version of Newbury Street.
Several cities and towns in Massachusetts already offer wireless access, but on a much smaller scale than Newton is considering. Libraries in Sudbury, Natick, and Needham are outfitted, for example. In Natick, town officials have put together a wireless network called I-Net that connects all town buildings, but it is not available to the public. Officials in Brookline have been mulling wireless access spots, but not for the entire city.
A system in Chaska, Minn., which is scheduled to be completed by next week, is perhaps most similar to what Newton is looking at doing. The Minneapolis suburb has 200 access points on telephone poles. In a city of about 18,000, about 2,000 subscriptions have been filled out. The service costs $16 per month.
Some experts following the wi-fi trend, though, question whether it is realistic to spread the service throughout an entire city, rather than target several areas where they know demand is high. Officials in Paris, for example, announced several years ago that it would be covering the entire city with wireless Internet access. It's ended up just covering the train stations.
"Covering the whole city would be the exception to what we're seeing," said Hanzlik of the Wi-Fi Alliance. "What most places are doing is just looking at a few pockets that would need it."
Still, Parker is optimistic.
"I don't see any reason why this couldn't be done in six months," he said. "But will it take a year? I wouldn't be surprised."
