Why Is the Wireless City Concept So Inspiring ?????????

1
Why Is the Wireless City Concept So
Inspiring?????????

• H. T. Kung (???)
• Harvard University
• 2006 Digital Cities Convention Taipei
• Taiwan, ROC
• 29 June 2006

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Outline

• Introducing wireless cities
• Some positive and negative arguments about
  wireless cities
• Challenges
• Four recommendations
• Conclusion

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Defining Wireless Cities

• These are cities that provide(1)
  government-controlled,(2) citywide, (3)
  wireless,(4) broadband,(5) infrastructure-level,
  (6) data networks
• Currently these networks are all based on, WiFi
  and/or WiMAX technologies

4
Examples of Wireless Cities

• There are many ongoing municipal efforts in
  wireless cities, including Baltimore, Chicago,
  Cleveland, Minneapolis, Mountain View, Oklahoma
  City, Philadelphia, Portland, San Francisco,
  Sacramento, Taipei and dozens of small cities
  such as St Cloud
• These projects are widely covered by the media,
  and debates on their merit or demerit have
  received substantial attention from the public
  (e.g., why does the government do it? what are
  expected benefits to citizens?)

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Taipei Wireless

• Under the M-Taipei initiative, Taipei now has
  deployed arguably the largest city-wide WiFi
  network with over 4,000 deployed Access Points
  (APs)
• At this time, it seems that Taipei is still the
  only major Asian city in this wireless city area

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Comparing Two No.1 Recognitions Taipei 101 and
Taipei Wireless

• Taipei 101, the world tallest building, is
  beautiful
• It wins award. E.g., the Emporis Awards
  recognized Taipei 101 as the 2004 Best new
  Skyscraper of the Year for Design and
  Functionality
• It is a hard landmark showcasing Taiwans
  economic power

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Comparing Two No.1 Recognitions Taipei 101 and
Taipei Wireless (Cont.)

• In contrast, the Taipei Wireless Project is not
  necessarily tall nor beautiful. Nevertheless,
• The Intelligent Community Forum named Taipei as
  the 2006 Intelligent Community of the Year
• Taipei Wireless is a soft landmark showcasing
  Taiwans grassroot power in technology

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Positive Reasons for the Public's Attention on
Wireless Cities

• Improve government's services and efficiency
  (e.g., enhancing e-government objectives in all
  departments and public safety agencies)
• Offer affordable Internet access, especially in
  poor neighborhoods. (Some people would argue the
  fundamental right of a citizen to Internet
  access)
• Provide an environment for nurturing innovative
  IT-enabled services and applications

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Negative Reasons for the Public's Attention on
Wireless Cities

• Citywide wireless infrastructure is not
  government's business and thus is not an area to
  spend tax payers' money
• Citizens don't want the big brother to watch
  their network activities
• The government is incapable of building and
  operating citywide wireless infrastructure
• Business models for these infrastructures are
  lacking

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Rebuttal (1/2)

• It is generally difficult for private sectors to
  make money from pure development of
  infrastructure
• Highways do not generally make money, but
  transportation services and shopping malls that
  use highways do
• It is proper for the city government to provide
  facilities (e.g., light poles) and access rights
  to locations (e.g., subway stations) to
  facilitate the deployment of APs

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Rebuttal (2/2)

• Privacy protection is important for citizens, but
  the wireless infrastructure does not necessarily
  worsen it
• It does not seem that there are fundamental
  reasons why city governments, with some learning,
  cannot run a citywide wireless infrastructure
  well
• The government can support the infrastructure by
  using the money saved from the improved
  efficiency due to the wireless infrastructure

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Main Challenges

• How to achieve high penetration?
• Especially in disadvantaged neighborhoods
• How to provide sufficient reliability?
• How to make the infrastructure easy to use, while
  providing protection in security and privacy
• How to come up business models?

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Recommendation 1on Scaling Up the Infrastructure

• Leverage other non-profit enterprise wireless
  networks and even individually-owned APs
• E.g., we can use peer-to-peer AP-sharing to
  incorporate these other networks and APs
• This would provide a rapid and inexpensive means
  of scaling up the networking infrastructure and
  increasing its fault-tolerance
• Provide free access for an initial period of
  time, e.g., one year

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Recommendation 2 on Creating Value

• Encourage innovative services
• Open the wireless infrastructure to a variety of
  service providers, beyond government and
  traditional services such as ISP and VoIP (voice
  will be free soon)
• Call for proposals in innovative services (e.g.,
  convergent services, new content distribution,
  and Web 2.0 services that automatically push
  relevant community content to end users)
• Set up regulations to ensure a healthy
  environment for service-level competition
• Nurture business models for private sectors to
  make money on services and related devices (e.g.,
  service-driven xPod)

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Some BuzzwordsWeb 1.0 vs. Web 2.0
Web 1.0 Web 2.0
Platform Netscape, Explorer, .. Google services
Web pages Personal Websites Blogging
Portals Content Manag. Systems Wikis
VVoIP Netmeeting Skype,
Enciclopedia Britannica Online Wikipedia
Knowledge Directory taxonomy Tagging (folksonomy)
Referencing Stickiness Syndication (RSS)
Content Akamai (Content deliv.) BitTorrent (P2)
.. .
Source What is Web 2.0 by Tim OReilly, 9/05
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Recommendation 3on Raising Governments Expertise

• Build up governments capabilities in managing
  wireless infrastructure in both technology and
  regulations aspects
• If the government can build up its capabilities
  in environmental protection, it should be able to
  succeed in this wireless area as well

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Recommendation 4on Digital Divide

• Give priority to developing neighbors which can
  benefit most from the new wireless infrastructure
• Set up education and promotion programs to
  encourage the use of the infrastructure

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Conclusion (1/2)

• City government ought to be bold in providing
  citywide wireless infrastructure. There are three
  reasons (1) promoting economic development
  (e.g., innovative services), (2) improving
  government's services, and (3) helping close
  digital divide
• Government expects to face great challenges in
  developing the wireless infrastructure, including
  usability of the system and its business model

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Conclusion (2/2)

• To overcome these challenges, we recommend (1)
  leverage other networks (2) encourage innovative
  services (3) raise governments expertise in
  this area and (4) give priority in closing
  digital divide
• Wireless cities are interesting because their
  solutions depend on a citys social capital in
  addressing complicated technology and societal
  issues, and successful solutions have
  far-reaching impacts to the citys networked
  economy and society (it is a soft landmark or
  branding of a city)