Dublin Corpo Refused City-Wide Wifi Offer?

oceanclub

Saw this mentioned via ie-rant and wondered if anyone here knew anything more about it?

http://www.yourtechstuff.com/techwire/2006/07/dublin_city_cou.html

Seems utterly bizarre they would refuse simply because private providers could (but don't) offer the same service; you could make that argument about any service the corporation provides.

P.

Solair

Cork city centre's entirely covered by a corporation owned (run by Smart Telecom) wifi zone. It was initially free, but I don't think it is anymore.

Anyone got any idea if it sees much use?

Irish weather tends not to be too laptop in the park friendly! Unless you've a waterproof Panasonic Toughbook or something :P

daveyjoe

Solair wrote:

Cork city centre's entirely covered by a corporation owned (run by Smart Telecom) wifi zone. It was initially free, but I don't think it is anymore.

Anyone got any idea if it sees much use?

Irish weather tends not to be too laptop in the park friendly! Unless you've a waterproof Panasonic Toughbook or something :P

It's not free anymore, I think they give you 30 minutes free though and the prices after that aren't too bad (€5 for 4 hours, I think).

As for usage... I heard the figure of 2500 users being bandied around by smart during the chrismas period last year. I couldn't tell you if that is 2500 unique users or 2500 logins to the service.

Sarsfield

Well, according to todays SBP, the new mayor Vincent Jackson (has he dropped the "Ballyfermot" bit?) is all in favour, and he hopes it will get the go-ahead before the end of the year.

No more than €4M to build the network apparently. Lots of interest from the likes if IBB :eek: & Digiweb.

A sinister quote from Eircom to end the article. When asked if they were interested in building it, a spokesman said "That would assume we accepted the establishment of the network in the first place"

http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqid=15750-qqqx=1.asp

Altreab

Sarsfield wrote:

"That would assume we accepted the establishment of the network in the first place"
http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqid=15750-qqqx=1.asp

I too wondered about that comment ....is there anyway they can stop the rollout of such a wireless network?

But again it shows a bias towards Dublin when we have people talking about having a FREE network when even as we speak many in Dublin cant get a pay service!!! And the rest of the country outside the main POP centres cant get broadband period!!
How can we expect development in the regions if infrstructure isnt developed evenly across the country!!

Foxwood

Altreab wrote:

But again it shows a bias towards Dublin when we have people talking about having a FREE network when even as we speak many in Dublin cant get a pay service!!! And the rest of the country outside the main POP centres cant get broadband period!!
How can we expect development in the regions if infrstructure isnt developed evenly across the country!!

I'm sorry, do you not have your own county councils in the rest of the country?

It's bad enough us Dubliners having to subsidise you lot, but when you start complaining when Dublin City Corporation talks about spending it's own rates on services to it's own residents, I think you're playing the beal bocht just a bit much!

glucosamine

Dublin city council

Sarsfield

Altreab wrote:

But again it shows a bias towards Dublin when we have people talking about having a FREE network when even as we speak many in Dublin cant get a pay service!!! And the rest of the country outside the main POP centres cant get broadband period!!
How can we expect development in the regions if infrstructure isnt developed evenly across the country!!

Dublin City Councils job is to look after Dublin City. If Leitrim Co.Co. or any other rural local authority want's to do similar for their patch then more power to them. Dubliners will pay for their WiFi network via various council charges. Will the good citizens of the countryside be prepared to do similar?

Come to think of it, the answer is probably yes - they'll want Dubliners to pay for their WiFi too

cgarvey

Foxwood/Sarsfield, I'm not reading Altreabs comments as you are, obviously. There was no mention of money, and I didn't even get a hint of him/her expecting one region to pay for another's BB. So can we take a chill pill please!

.cg

viking

Sarsfield wrote:

A sinister quote from Eircom to end the article. When asked if they were interested in building it, a spokesman said "That would assume we accepted the establishment of the network in the first place"

The buck stops with us huh?

I think I recall McRedmond saying that there was nothing stopping any other company building their own network to rival eircom's, looks like they're not to happy about this bit o' news. Can't see how they could stop it tbh, except taking an injuction out regarding the way the tender was awarded if they feel they were not fairly in the running.

clearz

Foxwood wrote:

I'm sorry, do you not have your own county councils in the rest of the country?

It's bad enough us Dubliners having to subsidise you lot, but when you start complaining when Dublin City Corporation talks about spending it's own rates on services to it's own residents, I think you're playing the beal bocht just a bit much!

LOL is it just me or is there a smell of dumb American neo con of that post. Mate there is 4 million ppl living in Ireland and 1.something in dublin. I hate to bust your bubble but Dublin is a spec of a city in a spec of a country. Your city aint all that great. Get over yourself.

Blaster99

I would have thought this was the really worrying bit:

‘‘We would be very interested in getting involved in any such project,” said a spokesman for Irish Broadband. ‘‘We think we’re probably one of the best companies to advise on such a roll-out.”

Let me put this as gently as I can: no you're not.

antoinolachtnai

Muni wi-fi projects are actually very difficult to do on anything more than a small scale. The costs mount up and the uptake isn't that big. It certainly isn't viable to build a network covering more than 5 or 10 electoral districts for 4 million, and it is obviously important to consider the operating costs. Something like this could make money on a busy street, but it's just not going to cover its costs in a quiet residential zone. And operators certainly do have some sort of case for being unhappy about the state directly subsidizing a competitive offer to their own.

One way of doing it without messing all this up is with fon. Basically, residents and business owners build their own network by installing a fon router in their premises, connected to their existing broadband line. You can get the routers for five euros each, so the capital costs are pretty low. See http://www.fon.com/ for details.

Disclosure: I am an advisor to FON (but it's still a really good idea).

cgarvey

Not withstanding your point (that's been debated the world over) about state investment in a competitive alternative, I think FON has a long way to go before it'll allow tourists and residents be able log on in most parts of the city centre. Fon is like Skype in the early days. A nice idea in bad need of some users.

.cg

Foxwood

antoinolachtnai wrote:

And operators certainly do have some sort of case for being unhappy about the state directly subsidizing a competitive offer to their own.

Dublin City Council is not the State. It has no role in the regulation of other broadband providers (except perhaps for planning permissions), and has just as much right to offer services to its citizens as anyone else does.

cgarvey

It is a publically funded local authority though which, some people will argue, should eliminate them from engaging in commercial practices (as that would be seen as having bias). I'm undecided, as I can see the merits of both sides of the argument.

Blaster99

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Something like this could make money on a busy street,

The article headline says "free". I'd say this is at a very early stage, so who knows what the end product is going to be but there are other cities that have done free wifi access. It seems very un-Irish for a public service to actually do something for its people, so I'm sceptical.

antoinolachtnai wrote:

One way of doing it without messing all this up is with fon. Basically, residents and business owners build their own network by installing a fon router in their premises, connected to their existing broadband line. You can get the routers for five euros each, so the capital costs are pretty low. See http://www.fon.com/ for details.

You'll be glad to know that as of last night, my FON router is up and running...

Foxwood

cgarvey wrote:

It is a publically funded local authority though which, some people will argue, should eliminate them from engaging in commercial practices

If they give it away for free, they're not engaged in a commercial practice.

Saying that the City Council should be prevented from offering such a sevice is like saying that they shouldn't sweep the streets, because a commercial company could do that, and that they shouldn't run libraries because Easons sells books, and that they shouldn't fund the St Patricks day Parade, because other companies make money by charging people for entertainment.

bk

I recently used the free wifi service (Google Wifi) in San Francisco, it was really nice sitting in Union Square, surfing the web for maps, time tables, etc. But to be honest I don't think it would really be a competitor to fixed line BB.

You could surf just fine but VPN/VNC was pretty flaky, and I'm pretty sure p2p, etc. was blocked. At best it might be competition for dial-up, which would be a good thing.

BTW I think it is a great selling point for tourists, I found it very useful for looking up touristy stuff in SF and good for visiting business people to keep in touch with work.

antoinolachtnai

We definitely need blanket wi-fi coverage in Dublin.

There are serious ongoing costs to running such a big, free wi-fi network, if the city council is going to deploy it. I just don't see how DCC could do it for free. It would have to pay for backhauls, and it would have to pay for the actual Internet access, together with the cost of managing it.

cgarvey: For sure, FON needs users, so sign up! It's less than 18 euros for a router. If you live on a street with cafes, shops and/or foot traffic, let me know and I'll see if I can get you one for free.

I still think the basic premise is correct - there should be cheap or free wi-fi blanketing the busier areas in Dublin. The only question is how this should be done.

blorg

If you support this, write to your local councillor letting them know. That's the only way we're going to get it.

I don't believe that this would be that expensive to operate and would be a great boon to visitors; I got a Nokia 770 recently and found it fantastic for looking stuff up in Boston/NYC (albeit generally on accidentally "free" networks.)

I would also be concerned about people using this to replace their broadband, not out of any love for the activities of "free enterprise" in providing it (yeah right, bit of a monopoly there with Eircom's owning the lines) but simply because such a load might make the whole thing unworkable. This could be avoided simply enough by limiting the service (speed, port blocking, etc.) while still making it attractive to light temporary users.

eircomtribunal

Could be of interest in this matter, too: EC rules regarding state aid.
According to a Reuters report the Commission has blocked aid to installing a fibre network in a Dutch town.

EU Commission blocks Dutch broadband aid plan
Wed Jul 19, 2006
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European regulators blocked a local subsidy for installing a broadband Internet network for the first time on Wednesday, citing state aid rules to deny a Dutch town the right to co-finance such a project.

The decision appeared to create a precedent that public money cannot be used to install high-speed Internet lines in urban areas where such services already exist and there is private competition.

The municipality of Appingedam intended to fund part of the cost of deploying a local network but the plan was challenged by a cable operator, the Commission said in a statement.

The aid would have amounted to up to 2 million euros (1.36 million pounds), a source familiar with the case said. The Commission gave no figure.

"The project concerns an area already served by broadband networks and the Commission considered that the aid was not necessary to remedy either a market failure or unaffordable prices for broadband services," the Commission said.

The Commission has cleared state aid for broadband networks in rural and remote areas where services are not available or limited, most recently in Ireland, Latvia and Greece.

P.

watty

So WiFI in Achill, not St Stephens green by the Council

Sarsfield

"The project concerns an area already served by broadband networks and the Commission considered that the aid was not necessary to remedy either a market failure or unaffordable prices for broadband services," the Commission said.

So this ruling won't apply to WiFi in Ireland

mayhem#

For a Dutch city to subsidise an company to install fiber in a country that has a level of broadband penetration that we in Ireland can only dream of is ridiculous off course. It's public sector medling in private enterprise and the less we see of that the better.

Anyway, back to Dublin's municipal wireless network; there are several options to consider.

• Dublin city council puts out an RFP and reviews the proposals. A decision is made based on these proposals as to what company will be allowed the rights to rollout the network. This company will be responsible for the rollout, management and support of the network. Dublin city council does not contribute any money towards the project but might give the selected company access to council property for equipment placement.
• Dublin city council goes through the same RFP process but follows it with a tender process. The network will be rolled out by a private company but will be owned and managed by Dublin city council.
• Same RFP process as above but Dublin city council outsources the rollout, management & support of the network. Basically as a managed service. Dublin city council pays the selected company for this service off course. Access to the entwork and it's services will be free (to a certain extent).

Personally I would consider the first option as the best. A network like this requires a lot of knowledge, experience and resources that Dublin cc does not have. Also the council owning a network like this would constitute a public sector body competing with the private sector and we should stay well away from that.
So that leaves option 1 & 3, both have their benefits but seeing that a network like this should be seen as a service to the community I would consider option three the best choice. That way the council can demand certain services and standards of the network operator that will be aimed at providing the community with more than just broadband. By paying for the services the council can keep a tight reign on these standards being met. This would prevent a company from aquiring the rights to manage this network and just use it as a cashcow.

I could go on & on about this for some time but I'll leave it at this for now...

E.

antoinolachtnai

Well, there is another option - the city council provides free wi-fi in the areas around the premises it controls, and uses this as a stimulus to encourage other entities in the city (i.e., companies and residents) to do the same.

mayhem#

antoinolachtnai wrote:

Well, there is another option - the city council provides free wi-fi in the areas around the premises it controls, and uses this as a stimulus to encourage other entities in the city (i.e., companies and residents) to do the same.

Two questions:

1) Do you see that happening.
2) Is it really a good idea to have the public sector competing with the private sector?

E.

Foxwood

mayhem# wrote:

2) Is it really a good idea to have the public sector competing with the private sector?

If it's good to have two entities competing, it doesn't fundamentally matter if you arbitrarily assign one a label that says "private" and the other a label that says "public".

If, on the other hand, you have some ideological bias against public services, then there probably isn't any argument that would convince you that the public good can sometimes be better served by providing "free" services.

I'm not convinced that there are obvious reasons why Dublin City should provide 5Mbps unlimited access wifi in the city, or that the city woud benefit by providing free P2P to people who can afford to spend €1500 a month to live in the city in the first place. On the other hand, there is a case to be made that providing free web browsing in the city would be an advantage to tourists and to service industries generally.

If such a service is likely to benefit the city sufficiently to justify the cost of providing it (a possibly subjective judgement), then go for it. Private businesss are already doing this on a small scale (pubs and cafes that provide free wifi).

mayhem#

Public and private sector competing is always a bad idea.
Look at BUPA & VHI for a good example!
I also find your references to 5Mbps and "people who can afford to spend €1500 a month to live in the city in the first place" tasting of an unrealistic view of the matter.
This should not become a love&peace free for all network along the lines that FON promotes. If Dublin, or any other city for that matter, decides to undertake a project liek this it is of paramount importance that the network is properly planned, implemented & managed and that i guarantees a certain QOS.
If not you will end up with a large sum of money being spend on something that will only be a benefit to a select few in the long run...

E.

antoinolachtnai

can you elaborate a little on the 'love and peace' remark?

mayhem#

antoinolachtnai wrote:

can you elaborate a little on the 'love and peace' remark?

FON seems to aim at a network for users by users with very little attention to QoS or network management. While an effort like this is commendable and all that it is not of the standard that a Muni network should offer in order to be viable...

E.

antoinolachtnai

It has a self-funding business model. It is very difficult for municipal wi-fi (i.e., special installations on poles and buildings and all the costs that go with that) to be self-funding. Of course, it isn't essential that public services are self-funding, but it certainly helps, especially since the council has no real way of raising money for this on an ongoing basis.

The network is undoubtedly nomadic, not blanket. The same really goes for municipal wi-fi. It is expensive to get thorough coverage in anything but a relatively small area of a city or town.

I don't know of any public-access radio network in any large city anywhere in the world that offers any sort of QoS guarantee. Vodafone, Three, O2 and Meteor certainly don't.

The public bands are basically unmanaged. It's impossible to impose a high level of management upon them. Even the city council can't 'control' the network; they have to accept and deal with interference from other sources.

If you did want to impose a minimum standard of coverage (for example, 'all street areas to be covered') there would be no problem doing that with FON. It's just a matter of finding the sites and getting access to them, which you would have to do in any case.

democrates

Some of you might be interested in http://www.irishwan.ie/

I'm in sth dub using ntl and it's on and off almost daily now, I'm annoyed enough to overcome inertia at this stage.

If the government are serious about Ireland being a broadband nation with more teleworkers etc the policy needs to encourage local councils to enable community schemes. Absenting a popular mandate, the vested interests get their spoke in and we end up paying over the odds to benefit wealth concentrators.

I don't agree with the EU policy that we the people cannot organise our own facilities through our councils. By all means allow business to compete, if they're really that good the EU doesn't need to hobble the initiatives of local democratic organisations.

mayhem#

antoinolachtnai wrote:

If you did want to impose a minimum standard of coverage (for example, 'all street areas to be covered') there would be no problem doing that with FON. It's just a matter of finding the sites and getting access to them, which you would have to do in any case.

And who is going to ensure that all network components are properly managed and provide a acceptable level of uptime?

E.

cgarvey

Agreed, I think it's unrealistic to expect a community effort for a municipal network. The co-ordination of a voluntary bunch of people is hard enough, and gets harder the more there are involved. Start slapping SLAs on a provider and paying him, and a lot of people will lose interest in the "community" very quickly.

democrates

Community schemes can fill gaps where commercial providers aren't interested at a low enough price. Irishwan is not big in Dublin where there are reasonable choices already, it's bigger down the country where the available options aren't as good, and where people are more inclined to provide for themselves, just like water schemes, tv deflectors etc.

But yes, a half-baked have a go scheme won't cut it, especially if people are depending on it for teleworking, business, banking etc. Also it's not ideal to be dependant on a few volunteers, goodwill and free time can wax and wane. Otoh, some community organisations are quite vibrant and have good continuity, it's not an insurmountable problem as those other successful schemes attest.

In cases where volunteers are recompensed with a cut of the access charges, they are no longer pure volunteers in fairness, if I'm paying for something I expect a level of service so it's partially commercial. But we're not in an either/or black and white situation, a lot of people might be interested in a much cheaper service that isn't as solid as a fully commercial offering, not forgetting that commercial services aren't all rock solid anyway. I'd like to have a choice.