Wireless (and Wired) Minneapolis

**The Ways and Means Committee will hear public testimony on the broadband initiative at 1:45 (time certain) on Tuesday, February 21. The time to speak up is now.**

There Are Cheaper and Quicker Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide than the Current Minneapolis Plan

The Mayor and others say we have to move quickly toward a privately owned network in order to address the digital divide. But if bridging the digital divide is the focus, there ways to do it that are cheaper and faster than the current plan for a privately owned network.

Wireless is cheap and getting cheaper all the time. In Cambridge, MIT graduate students are installing FREE CITYWIDE WIRELESS as a class project. Even professional solutions cost less than what Minneapolis is projecting.  Unlike Minneapolis' project, which focuses on city services and public safety connectivity, Wireless Philadelphia’s focus IS to eliminate the digital divide. Its network is expected to cost $96,300 per square mile. Minneapolis has said its network, intended primarily for public safety use, will cost $431,000 per square mile. 

Wireless can be installed quickly. In the best-case scenario, however, the system planned under the current RFP will not be up and running for another 14 months – two full years after the RFP was issued. Other cities have gone through the entire process in less than 12 months.

As for community benefits, the City has said it expects to pay $2.5 million annually for services on the network.  Even if the community benefits amounted to the equivalent of the 5 percent cable franchise fee (the amount Earthlink has agreed to give Wireless Philadelphia), and if the subscription rate is 25 percent at $20 per month, that still amounts only to $600,000 per year. The City will pay out substantially more to a privately owned network than we will get in return.

On the other hand, according to a draft financial analysis by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a city owned infrastructure could generate at least $70 million in public benefits over 10 years, and $60 million more in the following five years, when the debt is paid off.

The City says a publicly owned network would consume the entire capital budget. But unlike roads and sidewalks, this is an investment that would not only quickly repay the initial investment, but would provide a surplus that could be used to fund other City projects, including those that address the digital divide.

Provided by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, www.newrules.org

Contact: Becca Vargo Daggett, 612.379.3815 x209, becca@ilsr.org