Post in Minneapolis Wi-Fi: Time to Pull the Contract?

Mar 23 15:38 UTC

Thanks guys, for reenforcing my perceptions about our problem
plagued municipal WiFi service. U.S. Internet seems to do a good job
of answering phone calls for tech help and returning e-mails. But
their internet presence needs some help. But the problems go much
deeper than that, problems that require more hardware, trained techs,
and bucket trucks to fix. The fundamental problem is that they're
trying to get by with nodes spaced 200 meters apart when WiFi devices
have a range of half that under perfect conditions. Throw in some
urban landscape to bounce signals around and the range can go down to
the order of 10 meters. With 200 meters between nodes, U.S. Internet
needed 64 per square mile and darn near 4000 to cover our 60 square
mile city. To make the system function to spec will require adding
additional nodes on a 100 meter spacing, requiring about 12,000
additional nodes. U.S. Internet claimed that it would cost them
$150,000/square mile to install the nodes, and IIRC they were
originally planning on even wider spacing. I have a hard time
believing that it costs over $1000 to put up a node, but U.S.
Internet claims costs of more than double that.

	So using U.S. Internet's numbers, we're looking at an additional
investment of $30,000,000 or so to make the system functional. Our
city government having given the contract to a privately held
company, we have no access to their books. Our only notice of their
financial collapse may come when the system goes down and calls to
tech support bring us the "this number has been disconnected" tape.
 From what we can see from outside, the finances of U.S. Internet
look questionable. Despite a plentiful supply of unemployed
installation techs, construction of the anemic system is months
behind schedule. U.S. Internet is offering a 2nd year free with the
prepayment of one years service, suggesting cash flow problems. It
appears the 8000 number we've heard is not the number of paid
subscribers, but merely the number of potential subscribers who have
asked to be informed when the service becomes available. Given that
20% of those 8000 are in a "challenge" area which U.S. Internet may
never get to and the service has yet to be available in many internet
savvy neighborhoods in northeast, along the river, and around the
University I suspect the number of paid subscribers is around a
thousand or two. Even 2000 customers at an average of $25/month gives
but $600,000 a year in revenue. That's not enough to pay the interest
on U.S. Internet's claimed around $30,000,000 total investment in the
system. It appears that the system's largest revenue source is our
city, propping up U.S. Internet with $1,250,000 a year for a system
that is all but useless for city government.

	Any way you tweak the numbers, barring some very patient venture
capitalists or other funding sources, U.S. Internet is going to
default. Whether the default comes from losing it's city subsidy for
failure to meet performance specifications or inability to pay the
help and bills, the system is probably going to be abandoned on our
city's property. Had there been more diligence before signing the
contract we might not be facing that eventuality, but that's water
under the dam. Our city and especially it's leaders needs to demand
more of U.S. Internet and quit prolonging the inevitable with
subsidies if they can't meet specifications. Our city can take
possession of the system that may soon be abandoned on our light
poles, upgrade it, and make it functional with our own city workers
and local tradespeople- all it takes is our council and mayor to show
some leadership on this issue instead of blindly rubber stamping
departmental and consultants recommendations.

	from the other side of the digital divide in Hawthorne,

		Dyna Sluyter