Boston’s neighborhood business districts may soon be bustling with free Wi-Fi hot spots thanks to the city’s Main Streets economic development project. But Boston’s free project is different from those proposed in other large U.S. cities.
First of all, Boston said its Wi-Fi project is about economic development and stimulating business growth. There will be no blanketing of the entire city with free or low-cost Wi-Fi Internet access. Boston plans to blanket only its 18 or so neighborhood business districts with free Wi-Fi, which it hopes will entice people to dwell in the area and spend money in neighborhood businesses.
“Free Wi-Fi is a tool we’re using to draw people into our neighborhood business districts,” said Brian Goodman, neighborhood business manager for the city of Boston. “We have no plans to offer Wi-Fi in residential areas. We hope people will use the free Wi-Fi to check their e-mail and surf the Internet while they are out and about. We don’t want them to feel like they have to rush home to do those things.”
The Boston Main Streets project already offers free Wi-Fi in the Roslindale district and expects to offer free Wi-Fi in Washington Gateway and Jamaica Point within a few weeks. By spring, Goodman said he expects West Roxbury, Hyde Park and Mission Hill to have free Wi-Fi access.
Secondly, Boston’s plan is different because it’s self-supported-funded by advertising and donations-and not by Boston’s taxpayers. Airpath Wireless Inc., Ascio Wireless, Colubris Networks, Tropos Networks Inc. and Community WISP are donating equipment and services for the neighborhood networks, while an advertising splash page is expected to bring in revenues the city can use to score funding to build additional free Wi-Fi hot spots in other business districts.
“As cities around the nation consider their Wi-Fi options, there is ongoing discussion about the taxpayer burden surrounding metro Wi-Fi deployments,” said Wallace Olsen, principal of Ascio Wireless. “Technology partners such as Airpath give us the flexibility to integrate advertising into sign-on and other pages, which generates the revenue to support the project. It’s a winning situation for vendors, end users and the city.”
Boston’s system uses Airpath’s WiBOSS Metro platform, which the company said supports subscriber management, provisioning, authentication, authorization, accounting and report generation. Airpath said its partner, Colubris Networks, is supplying access points for the deployment, including several InMotion Multiservice Controllers.
It’s easy to wonder if Boston’s advertising-supported Wi-Fi model was inspired by Google Inc.’s San Francisco Wi-Fi proposal.
“No. We came up with the idea all on our own,” said Goodman. “Obviously Google is famous for using advertising in innovative ways, but the idea of using advertising revenues to fund part of your business model is not really all that new, and it’s always been part of our Main Streets Wi-Fi plan.”
Lastly, Boston said its plan isn’t about bridging a digital divide. It’s about economic rejuvenation in business districts. The city also noted that the plan does not take profits away from Internet service providers.
“In fact, we consulted with Verizon (Communications Inc.) as we were planning,” said Goodman. “We’re not trying to dip into the profits of ISPs-we don’t want to compete with them. Main Street’s free Wi-Fi does not creep into residential neighborhoods, and it doesn’t offer speeds conducive to running a business or providing municipal Internet services.
“We’re not trying to create free Wi-Fi for all Bostonians. We think our plan makes sense for Boston’s neighborhood business districts. We’re trying to help bring people back into local neighborhood businesses. We’re taking baby-steps right now with technology.”
“Boston is a city known for innovation, so it’s only fitting that we are introducing cutting-edge wireless technology in our neighborhood commercial districts,” said Thomas Menino, mayor of Boston. “Wi-Fi is great for Main Streets because it draws people into the districts where they can meet with neighbors, do shopping and check their e-mail all in the same area. And it provides small-business owners with free access to technology that they can profit from.”
