Complementary Roles for Municipal Wi-Fi?

Municipal Wi-Fi networks perhaps are carving out a distinct niche that commercial providers might have little interest in serving. "No incremental cost" public Wi-Fi networks running at very low speeds, such as 1 Mbps downstream, and serving outdoor areas, provide one example. 

Santa Clara Power, the municipal utility serving Santa Clara, Calif. has launched just such a network, offering free outdoor access across outdoor areas of the city at speeds of 1 Mbps. The "free" service does not offer "for fee" tiers of service and is offered as an amenity. 

In large part, the positioning of such a service is complementary to most commercial high-speed access services, not competitive. And that might be important, going forward. 

Many initiatives and experiments now envision public-private partnerships or other "non-traditional" ways of spurring investment in very high speed (1 Gbps) networks. The key is finding some "win-win" pattern that provides incentives for commercial ISPs to invest, while providing some path to a sustainable revenue model. 

Technology advances make a difference. As is the case in every other field where computing and communications are used, the cost of building or using an outdoor Wi-Fi network now are lower than a decade ago. 

Vijay Sammeta, San Jose's chief information officer, said the San Jose, Calif. municipal Wi-Fi network cost only about $100,000 to install and requires around $20,000 annually to maintain. 

That has been a problem for many such efforts launched by cities and towns over the last 10 years. Operating costs have been a big issue. One might argue that especially has been the case for operations that intended to supplement "free" service with other "paid" tiers of service, or possibly sale of advertising. 

Very few consumers would pay for service running at such levels, and most public Wi-Fi public Wi-Fi networks operate at power levels that make in-building use an "iffy" proposition. But that is why such networks are complementary to commercial offers from Internet service providers. 

In some instances, success has been obtained in small towns where commercial service either is expensive or slow, and where a commercial carrier decides the municipal offer is not a big threat.