Public Service Provision vs. Private: The Debate
Goverments are often judged on how well they deliver services to their constituents and their ability to provide those services at a low cost. Municipal networks provide the competition necessary to keep rates low and quality of service high. Many communities have only a single provider or a cable/telco duopoly. In these communities, rates remain high and service remains poor. Municipal systems do not “crowd out” private providers any more than the New York City Subway “crowds out” private taxi cabs and car services. While regional private providers have done a good job of providing broadband where profitable, they have not provided timely deployment to address health, education and welfare issues. While the profit motive often fosters innovation and deployment, it will leave vital community needs unmet unless local governments step in to fill the gap. Put simply, privately owned network providers fail to take into account the broader community benefits of broadband services, because these benefits cannot be captured as profits. The solution to America’s broadband crisis must ultimately involve public-private initiatives like those that built the railroad, highway and telephone systems. Local governments built municipal power systems as part of the efforts to electrify America in the first part of the 20th Century. Local governments run public transportation networks and sewage networks, maintain local roads, build schools and hospitals despite the fact that private businesses could, and in many places do, provide competing services. Incumbent providers have sought to prevent the entry of competing municipal systems by lobbying for legislation to stifle municipal deployments. These arguments ignore the reality of broadband deployment in America today and the long history of local government involvement in deploying critical infrastructure. Municipalities act with a public motive, not a profit motive.

Fact: Muni Wireless Solutions Contribute to Stronger Education, Brighter Futures
The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 94% of youth ages 12-17 who have Internet access say they use the Internet for school research and 78% say they believe the Internet helps them with schoolwork. 71% of online teens say that they used the Internet as the major source for their most recent major school project or report. Moreover, 41% of online teens say they use email and instant messaging to contact teachers or classmates about schoolwork. Use of the internet at school has grown 45% since 2000, and out of the children surveyed, 87% get online at home, 75% get online at a friend’s house, 61% at local library and 11% at a local community center. Young people are the future of any community. To help keep their talent and energy from leaving, get them connected. Broadband access is necessary to bridge the digital divide and provide children the educational opportunities they’ll need.

Fact: Muni Wireless Solutions Contribute to Lower Crime Rates
New Orleans, LA, is well underway with installing a unique citywide public safety video surveillance network using a metro-scale Wi-Fi mesh network. According to City officials, in the initially deployed areas, the innovative combination of high end camera technology, Wi-Fi mesh, motion detection and other elements reduced the murder rate by 57% in six months and auto theft by 25%. Citizens report feeling safer as a result of the cameras. The city is rapidly expanding the network to cover the majority of the city in the months ahead as a result, with hundreds of cameras scheduled to be deployed by summer.

Fact: Muni Wireless Networks Will Become More Capable, Affordable and Relevant Over Time
According to Tropos, over 100 million Wi-Fi client devices have been shipped to date. Wi-Fi has gotten 25x faster since its introduction in 1997 and will get faster still in the next few years. Wi-Fi is already connecting a wide variety of end-use devices: laptops, PDAs, security cameras, traffic management systems, meter-readers, location sensors, cell phones and much more. New technologies such as WiMAX are totally complementary to Wi-Fi, easily integrated and will add to the value of municipal wireless networks as they are implemented. Therefore, fears that such new technology will quickly make municipal wireless networks installed today obsolete are simply unfounded. To the contrary, they will only make these networks better and better.

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