Recently added resources

Municipal Broadband Policy Brief: Demystifying Wireless and Fiber-Optic Options
Christopher Mitchell, Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR). January 2008. www.newrules.org/info/munibb.html

This document clearly explains the relative advantages of fiber and wireless technologies, briefly, "wireless offers mobility, but only fiber solves speed and capacity concerns."

Gillett, Sharon (2006). Municipal Wireless Broadband: Hype or Harbinger? Southern California Law Review. Volume 79: 561-594. PDF: cfp.mit.edu/groups/broadband/docs/2006/Muni_BB_Hype-Harbinger.pdf

This article argues that municipal wireless networks are important, but not for the reasons implied in popular reporting that surrounds this topic (see Section III, p. 21). Cities are unlikely to directly serve the residential and business public. Municipalities, however, have been significant early adopters of innovative unlicensed wireless broadband technologies, providing both a market toehold to innovative products and services using those technologies, and an experimental testing ground for novel organizational models. In addition (see Section IV, p. 26), the concern for policymakers should not be whether cities should be involved in wireless broadband; there are legitimate reasons why they should, and why increasing numbers of them will be. Rather, the important public policy concern is how to ensure that, in the process of facilitating the first uses of wireless, city authority does not get subverted to create artificial limits on future broadband wireless competition (for example, by giving only one company rights to the municipal infrastructure necessary to deploy a citywide wireless network). Doing so will require thoughtful melding of separate legal frameworks governing access to city property and public rights of way into a coherent policy that guides when exclusivity legitimately can or cannot feature in public-private partnership arrangements for communications services. Selected quotes: “Local government involvement in broadband should therefore be judged by whether it fosters opportunities for competition, not by whether such competition is good or bad for incumbent providers of telecommunications—or in the case of Pennsylvania’s statute, specifically telephone—services. To judge whether a local government’s involvement fosters broadband competition requires consideration of the particular competitive situation of each community, and the specific nature of the government’s involvement,” (p. 26). “While blanket bans [of municipal involvement in wireless projects] are clearly a poor idea, narrowly tailored limitations on the nature of local government involvement may be reasonable if needed to ensure that such involvement invigorates, rather than impoverishes, local broadband competition,” (p. 27) “Cities that have been pleasantly surprised by the interest of WISPs in partnering with them today should not blind themselves to the even more pleasant possibility that more WISPs may wish to serve their communities in the near future. Wireless deployments do not justify the same kind of exclusive franchise agreements that made sense for minimizing the public disruption related to the installation of cable television,” (p. 27-28).

Wi-Fi Alliance http://www.wi-fi.org/about_overview.php

The Wi-Fi Alliance is a global, non-profit organization that aims to ensure that there is a single, worldwide standard for high-speed wireless local area networking. It has more than 300 members from more than 20 countries, including widely recognized telecommunications providers and equipment makers, like Cisco and Dell: Wi-Fi Alliance Members http://www.wi-fi.org/our_members.php

The Wi-Fi Alliance develops tests and conducts Wi-Fi certification of wireless devices that implement the universal IEEE 802.11 specifications. It also aims to provide users with information they about various Wi-Fi systems.

Bakowski, A. (2003). Municipal Telecommunications Policy: A Guide to New Technologies. The Municipal Advanced Telecommunication Infrastructure Project (MuniTIP) CACP Policy Report. Georgia Tech. http://www.cacp.gatech.edu/Policy/munitip.php

The Municipal Advanced Telecommunication Infrastructure Project (MuniTIP) examines the role of municipal involvement in advanced information infrastructure development. The project and this report examine (a) cases of public involvement in this infrastructure, especially by local, municipal actors, and (b) outline a process, and a set of assessment tools to assist stakeholders and policy makers in choosing the right policy approach for their community. Policy approaches identified by the report include: 1) develop a municipally owned infrastructure; 2) expand/augment current infrastructure; 3) create public/private partnerships; 4) create public/non-profit partnerships; 5) stimulate the marketplace; or 6) do nothing. The report can help municipalities to think through whether or not to become involved with the provision of advanced telecommunications services, such as broadband internet, and what approach to provision makes most sense for the community.

Resources for Community Technology Centers, from the Community Technology Centers’ Network. http://ctcnet.org/resources/dir/

This is a collection of resources for community technology centers provided by the Community Technology Centers’ Network (CTCNet). Resources include those on: Advocacy and Civic Engagement, Community Engagement, Disability/Inclusion, Evaluation and Strategic Planning, Fundraising, Operations and Staffing, Programs, and Technology. CTCNet is a national organization whose members are community technology centers (CTCs) and other non-profits that provide technology access and education to underserved communities. In general, community technology centers offer resources to help overcome the digital divide, usually through public access to computers and the internet. The center may also provide training that ranges from basic computing skills to digital media production. Centers may be freestanding, though many are located in public libraries, schools, social service agencies, neighborhood centers, and religious centers.

One of concepts that we can consider as part of the bigger picture, is
universal access, the concept behind it, the right to have it, and the
funds and strategies used around the world to make it happened. Some
government officials are building and supporting municipal networks
because they do believe that they can be tools to reach the goal of
universal access. Some, are even requesting resources to the universal
access funds to deploy infrastructure and services.
This study, available in English and Spanish, covers the Latin American
region and analyzes the current state of universal access funds in
nineteen countries of the region, providing a very useful and unique
inside. The authors have take the lead to issue recommendations to
stimulate change and modernization. The report is a collection of
resources seeking to provide the foundation for a dialogue among
public, private and non-profit stakeholders regarding universal access
and universal service programs; to help policymakers, regulators and
universal access fund administrators to design a new generation of
universal access programs.
This study on telecommunications universal access and universal service
policies and programs in Latin
America was developed by Peter A. Stern, David N. Townsend and Robert
Stephens, and jointly financed by Regulatel, the European Commission
through the @LIS program, the United Nations Economic Commission for
Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and two World
Bank-administered trust funds, the Public-Private Infrastructure
Advisory Facility (PPIAF) and the Global Program on Output Based Aid
(GPOBA). The full study is accessible at
http://www.regulatel.org/miembros/ppiaf2.htm

Hoofnagle, Chris Jay (2005). Privacy Self-Regulation: A Decade of
Disappointment. Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). March 4,
2005. http://www.epic.org/reports/decadedisappoint.html

Zhang, Mingliu and Richard Wolff (2004). Using WiFi for Cost-Effective Broadband Wireless Access in Rural and Remote Areas. Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, 2004. IEEE. Volume 3, Issue 21-25, March 2004: 1347 – 1352. http://www.coe.montana.edu/ee/rwolff/WCNC-%20conf-final.pdf

Lehr, William, Sharon Gillett, and Martin Sirbu (2005). Measuring
Broadband's Economic Impact. Broadband Properties Magazine, December
2005. http://cfp.mit.edu/groups/broadband/measuring_bb_pp.html. See the
same URL for academic and government report versions of the research.
This report by a group of MIT based researchers is a good summary of
research to date on the relationship between broadband and the economy.
It includes a discussion of why it is so difficult to measure this
relationship, and what data available in the future may help make this

C-Net News. Municipal Broadband Nationwide. http://news.com.com/Municipal+broadband+and+wireless+projects+map/2009-1...

This map shows operational and planned municipal broadband networks across the United States, including both fiber and wireless projects. Use this resource as a quick reference to find out what projects are happening in particular states, and whether or not there is state legislation that may either help or hinder such projects.