San Francisco Wi-Fi Report Kicks up Dust

SAN FRANCISCO WI-FI REPORT KICKS UP DUST
[SOURCE: Broadband-Today.com, AUTHOR: Joni Morse]
San Francisco’s municipal Wi-Fi project doesn’t pass the sniff test as administered by city budget analyst Harvey Rose. In a new report carried out at the request of the city’s Board of Supervisors, Rose concludes, “it may be fiscally feasible to build a municipally-owned wireless network.” However, Rose also notes, “to assure initial fiscal feasibility and sustain future fiscal feasibility, the city would need to continually work to contain and manage financial risk in the future in order to maintain a viable wireless service for all of San Francisco.” Rose says he reviewed projected wireless network capital expenditure needs and operational costs and weighed the estimates against projected revenue streams to determine the project’s fiscal feasibility. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, whose majority approval is needed in order for a network to be constructed, has been speaking out against Mayor Gavin Newsom’s plan to put EarthLink in charge of building and maintaining the city’s Wi-Fi network. The board was presented with a contract proposal agreed upon by the mayor’s office and EarthLink last week, and they now have a little less than six months to vote on the contract. Members of the board have complained publicly that the mayor’s office didn't adequately consider the viability of a plan that involved a city-owned network. The debate over whether the city should own the network or not comes down to two main factors: how much control the city ultimately will have over what services are offered to its citizens, especially its disadvantaged residents; and how the city would pay for the system. Rose’s report determined that the fiscal impact of city ownership of the Wi-Fi network ranges from an annual funding shortfall of more than $1.44 million to an annual revenue gain of about $923,000.
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