Municipal Broadband - Operation

Operation

Most municipal broadband networks avoid sometimes unreliable hub and spoke distribution models and use mesh networking instead. This method involves relaying radio signals throughout the whole city via a series of access points or radio transmitters, each of which is connected to at least two other transmitters. Mesh networks provide reliable user connections and are also faster to build and less expensive to run than the hub and spoke configurations. Internet connections can also be secured through the addition of a wireless router to an existing wired connection – a convenient method for Internet access provision in small centralized areas. Although wireless routers are generally reliable, their occasional failure means no Internet availability in that centralized area. This is why companies now use mesh networking in preference to hub and spoke configurations.

Three basic models for the operation and funding of Wi-Fi networks have emerged:

• Networks designed solely for use by municipal services (fire, police, planners, engineers, libraries, etc.). Municipal funds are used to establish and run the network;
• Quasi-public networks for use by both municipal services and private users owned by the municipality but operated for profit by private companies ("private hot spots"). Such networks are funded by specially earmarked tax revenues then operated and maintained on a chargeable basis by private service providers;
• Private service providers using public property and rights of way for a fee. These allow for in-kind provision of private access to public rights of way to build-out and maintain private networks with a 'lease payment' or percentage of profits paid to the municipality.

In Stockholm, the city owned Stokab provides network infrastructure through dark fiber to several hundred service providers who provide various alternative services to end users. Reggefiber in the Netherlands fulfils a similar role. The Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency provides service at one network layer higher through a fiber network. This system's capacity is wholesaled to fifteen service providers who in turn provide retail services to the market. A final model is the provision of all layers of service, such as in Chaska, Minnesota, where the city has built and operates a Wi-Fi Internet network that provides email and web hosting applications. These different models involve different public-private partnership arrangements, and varying levels of opportunity for private sector competition.

In the U.S. a few states have banned municipal broadband, others have restricted it, and some have regulated it following prudent business plans and studies. In 2007, three bills concerning the issue were pending before the U.S. Congress. One would have affirmed municipal broadband, one would have restricted it, and one would have prohibited it. The Community Broadband Act of 2007, created "to promote competition, to preserve the ability of local governments to provide broadband capability and services, and for other purposes", never became law.

Incumbent telecommunications and cable companies wishing to maintain their dominance in the market have complained that government competition is unfair. Other network operators have viewed it as an opportunity to expand their market. The Free Press, the Media Access Project, and the ACLU have all come out in favor of municipal broadband.

The reconstruction of New Orleans provided the impetus to build a metro-scale wireless broadband network to deliver free public Internet service alongside communications for government and emergency services. Bell South threatened the city with legal action if the New Orleans municipal network continued to be run by the city. Consequently, the network was sold to a third-party company.