To make all our lives easier, we needed to create a report, in the form of a book, which put together many “smart city” use cases, case studies, and development notes all in one handy book. Introducing the “Smart City Use Cases” book which is a comprehensive collection on smart city initiatives that range from transportation to broadband rollouts. It includes the wireless and Wi-Fi builds. It won’t just point out the success, but the failures. This is how we can all learn, from what’s been done and tried. Not every initiative is a success, so let’s learn from both the failures and the successes.
The Smart City Use Cases book is a collection of smart city case studies and development notes. The purpose of this book is to give you some advice and direction on smart city development. It’s for any city worker or consultant or integrator that intends to roll out in their city. The customer is not always right in this case. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Just because it’s been done doesn’t mean it’s right for your city. Think through what they end goal is then work backward from there.
Why not look at what other cities have done, how they got to where they are, why they did it, and the results? The process is as important as the end goal. The city will need buy-in from the residents and support from various departments. It helps when the integrator has a solid plan. Even with the solid plan, things change, and you need to be flexible. It pays to build one system that can serve multiple functions and support many users. It must have value, not just to the city but to the residents. It helps when it can make money or have a payback. This is another tool to help you down the path.
Get the right start on your smart city journey. The cities, contractors, and consultants need to work together to make ventures successful.
The rest is up to you, it’s hard work, don’t get me wrong, but this should help you see it can be done. There are failures, I point that out, but you need to take what you can and learn from it. Why make the same mistakes other’s have made when you can look at this and maybe even ask others what they did right and wrong.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
This is part three of a three-part series. This has been taken from my upcoming book, Smart City Use Cases, with Smart City Development Notes.
City Strategies for a Broadband Initiative
There are several strategies for any city to start the initiative.
Do you want to undertake this effort? Is this something that you need for the city? Can you build a story around it?
Then do the research, get the buy-in, and lay out the options.
Weigh out your options to get started? This is the first step.
Will you do it yourself or gather partners?
If you partner, which you probably will, who do you reach out to? Think about whom it will benefit. It could help the universities and the local businesses. Start with them first because they have the most to gain. Broadband attracts business and talent, both of which help the local universities and cities.
Look at what’s been done. Are there groups, like Next Century Cities and Smart Cities Council, that you can reach out to for help? Are there other cities that would offer advice? Of course! Do some research and look them up.
Once you have a partner and maybe a high-level plan, then what?
Will you own the network?
Will you want local businesses to build out the network?
Will you offer incentives, like easing the permitting process, offering city assets, or other things to promote local business to deploy?
Let’s Review
Let’s review some lessons that Gig.U taught us. I am summarizing from their Next Gen Handbook found at http://www.gig-u.org/cms/assets/uploads/2016/12/next-gen-handbook-v2.pdf to help make this easier. (In my words.) I changed the order by what I thought would be more important. I explain what I think is important that somewhat aligns with Gig.U. I speak from case studies and my personal experience.
Community buy-in! This is essential to have the community buy-in and have stakeholders in the community that want this to happen. Local resources help things move and continue moving. The problem with partners and consultants is that if they don’t have the support of the community, the project will die a slow miserable and painful death. Don’t let this happen to your project! Find people and groups in the community that want this to happen as much as you do! Residents and especially local activist groups will make or break you. Get their buy-in and have them be supportive from day 1 to day 400. (Builds take a long time, well more than a few years, you will need all the help you can get to stay motivated.)
Local Leadership is critical! If you don’t have the local politicians on board, then it is an uphill battle. Even if you do have the local political leaders, who’s to say they will continue to support you without the local community and activist groups. Politicians are fickle. They will support you for 2 reasons. One – because they truly believe in the cause that high broadband will make residents and business happy and build a new business in their community. While this is great, very few have the vision to see it through, Philadelphia is a great example. When Earthlink was building out Philadelphia, the local politicians were as fickle as the win, and they certainly didn’t commit any money to the project. When the local unions complained, the politicians turned on Earthlink as quickly as the Philadelphia wind changed. (About 10 minutes for those of you wondering.) It takes great leadership to make this go through, like Mayor Bloomberg in NYC, he has the grit to see the greater good, unlike the group of politicians in Philadelphia who chose to shut the system down after it was built and operation due to lack of interest and money. In my opinion, they had no grit and preferred to be remembered as a failed system, which they blamed Earthlink, that innovators. They are leaving the innovation up to the residents, who innovate despite the local government.
It’s not enough to build a plan, but you need the story, budget and goals to be laid out clearly. The truth is the budget is a guess, an educated guess, but these things always take longer and seem to cost more than originally anticipated. BUT, you need to start somewhere. Build a vision of what you and your partners expect to happen. Be honest and show people what it takes. See if they have the stomach to work through it or if they will cower away and home the local cable company gets off its ass and build something without screwing the residents. It’s your call, but it takes grit, something that most city leadership does not have. They blame everything. They say we don’t have the money or what if it fails or what if the residents don’t want high-speed internet access. Listen, get partners to pay, it won’t fail, and who doesn’t want high-speed internet access? The government doesn’t pay for their access because the local taxes cover it, so they don’t care, do they? When they get home, they probably use a smartphone they got from work, again, paid for the local taxpayer. Most school kids don’t have that luxury, yet they don’t’ care, they have what they need, screw the other residents in that city. (My opinion here)
It’s hard to plan and execute! Yes, it is, again, grit and a get’re done attitude is needed.
In most cases, incumbents will react, not initiate! That is The local cable companies normally won’t do jack until they see a clear and present competitor. Examples are Nashville, TN, where AT&T and Comcast fought to keep Google Fiber off the poles. Then in College Station, TX, where Suddenlink put $250 Million aside to upgrade the network only after they saw a clear competitor in the local government who issued an RFP to build the local network. To be clear, Suddenlink didn’t announce anything until after the RFP hit the streets. The community wanted broadband in the worst way, Suddenlink didn’t do jack until the RFP was real, then it looks like they panicked and moved ahead. Sometimes a kick in the ass is needed to get these guys to listen to the community. Competition is just the kick in the ass they needed.
Did you do an audit? Most cities wait until after they initiate several consultants to do an audit. They should be proactive and see what they really have available ahead of time. Prior to the actual engagement of partners and consultants. However, they don’t. It adds time to the entire process. Just do it, audit what you have and align with the local utilities to see how they will cooperate with you on this venture. Let them be the heroes if that’s what it takes. Think of the residents, not yourself! What we need now is a team and to align with the local utilities is a great place to start and ask for buy-in. We need the residents, local businesses, and the local utilities to get this moving. Work to get their buy-in and resources to move ahead. If you need help, let me know. What you need to know is: 1) what assets do we have? 2) what assets do we have access to? 3) who can we partner with to make this happen? 4) what assets don’t we have, and can’t we touch? Don’t worry, the local ISPs and Cable Companies will clue you in, either in a good way or a horribly competitive way.
There are multiple solutions, pick one! I think you see here each city, municipality, town, or community has its own specific solution. If you’re looking for a “One size fits all” solution, good luck. It’s OK to see what others have done and copied it, but you will soon see that they all did something a little bit Pick you best plan to move forward then execute.
Be persistent and be nimble! It takes persistence to keep moving, but don’t be afraid to pivot and make changes. You will need to rely on the flexibility of your partners to keep things moving ahead. The only thing you should be rigid on is the result, not the way you deploy. You may need wireless to get some fiber blocks, so do it. You may need to gain access to some buildings to bypass some poles that the incumbents would not let you on, do it. Don’t hesitate to the point where it stops the project. Be nimble and open-minded. It takes some creativity to keep moving ahead. Be open in receiving suggestions.
It needs to be scalable and sustainable! Don’t forget that you will want to expand, so keep the option open to grow. It needs to be sustainable, do keep an eye on the payback. You want your income to cover the costs. If they don’t then next group of politicians will shut it down or make the deployment harder for contractors even if the locals get pissed. They won’t care if the system is bleeding money.
Don’t be afraid of failure. Sometimes you need to keep the dream
alive even if this didn’t work. Maybe a partner or local business could step in to make this dream a reality, maybe they know something you didn’t, so be open to accepting help.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
This is part one of a three-part series. This has been taken from my upcoming book, Smart City Use Cases, with Smart City Development Notes.
Smart City Broadband Initiatives
Are you curious about some broadband initiatives that are out there? Some broadband case studies that are have rolled out? What broadband initiatives have been successes and failures? What works better, the city owning it or a public-private partnership or private only?
I am always saying that broadband is the foundation of any smart city. Someone shared the Next Generation Network Connectivity Handbook. It’s publication by Gig.U, and it can be downloaded from http://www.gig-u.org/. Gig.U is a group that encourages the partnerships between cities and universities. They did a great job of putting together this document, published in December of 2016, showing past case studies of gigabit deployments in both wireless and wired. They cover success and failures.
Here is an outline of some of what is in this document, I highly recommend downloading it, after all, it is free!
First off, the make the point that CapEx and OpEx must be lower than the revenues coming in and it should be serving a purpose for the users. Pay attention, Value and Profit make the system sustainable! Value and profit make the system growable! It has to make money! That is something that most cities overlook because they think that the benefit will outweigh the revenue, but it will not. Revenue matters in the long run and the benefits matter up front. Up front we want buy-in and residents to love it. In the long run, we
need sustainability, so it does not bleed money in expenses.
Does it solve a problem for the
residents? So, they see the value in it? Will they pay for it? When you start a business, you need to answer these questions. Figure out the price point. Some cities can put a tax out there to pay for the system, but that is not popular in most cities.
One example that I love in this document is the cable companies. They saw broadband up to 1 Gbps as silly, but they really didn’t want to upgrade their system unless they had too. Guess what? They had to! BUT, after they got competition in first form the likes of Verizon, AT&T, and Google running fiber all over the place for a very reasonable cost to the consumer. It paid off. Now all the cable companies are touting higher speeds. They see value because they were losing market share. That’s amazing when you realize they had a monopoly for years in their neighborhoods. They had no competition, but the need for broadband and cheaper video hurt them. They thought they could control the market, but in the USE the market started swinging back with DirecTV and fiber competitors. They suddenly have to be strategic.
OK, let’s get back to the business of broadband. Once you build it, expect competition! If your business model works then more and more people will do it, just look the cable companies. While they had a monopoly for years, they got lazy. Now they have competition, and it’s hurting them. Not just from fiber, most of the younger generation realized that they have a smartphone that can do anything the cable company can do, so why pay for both? Get the picture? The landscape has changed, and if you just look at other companies that do what you do, then you only see part of the competitive landscape.
This is happening with everything because broadband is the pipe to end all pipes. It could be through fiber or wireless, but the internet has opened doors to everything unless you live in China, then it only has a few open doors and a lot of blocked websites.
There is one thing that almost any city can agree on. You need broadband in your city to compete. The question is, “How do we get it here?” This is where you can look at other examples of successes and failures.
Google Fiber was supposed to be the knight in shining armor, but they stopped. They say they are going to wait for wireless, probably CBRS, but to be honest, there are plenty of bands and products that could deliver broadband now. I think that Google realized the profit model was not what they had hoped for, but they never said that officially, they just stopped, laid off a bunch of people, changed some leadership in the company, and they started saying wireless would save the day.
More on Google fiber stopping http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article110655177.html, this is a great article because they talk about all the pain points that Google saw in the real world. TV is expensive, incumbents have more control of the poles than they ever thought possible, and maybe wireless will be easier. They also say demand is not there. I don’t get that excuse at all! It seems lame. I think they should say competition is fiercer than they thought. That is more like it. For me to sum it up, Google should have cherry-picked markets that didn’t have too much competition. They should have focused on tier 2 cities that would not only have appreciated their presence but don’t have an alternative. I live in Pennsylvania, where the cable companies rule. The rules here don’t make it an ideal state to deploy much of anything, but it has plenty of underserved cities that not only want broadband, but they need it to survive. The smaller cable companies will not make the investment until they have too. They won’t spend the money. This is an ideal target for someone like Google Fiber to deploy. But, alas, I am dreaming.
Where was I? Oh yes, economic development. Broadband is a foundation for economic development. We know that businesses need broadband to survive, but how do they get it? Many cities have a dig once policy, so if someone lays broadband, then many people need to get it in while he or she can. This really helps to get things moving and keep the competition behind you if they are late to the game. Fiber companies and deployment companies win! They can lay out the dark fiber and sell it later, not a bad model.
They also cover the 3 models that cities can look at.
Primary
This is where the city takes the lead by using public facilities to roll out the fiber and makes the investment to deploy. They use their assets to mount it. They are the provider. They may partner with someone, but generally, the city runs the business and takes the credit.
An example of this is the Chattanooga, TN, network. In 2010 the city decided to have a gigabit network available for homes. They rolled it out, and since then Volkswagen and Amazon both expanded to that area. We give the broadband credit since it was there and they took a chance to deploy. Their model served other cities like Wilson, NC, and Leverett, Ma.
They also talk about Ammon, Id, who also built the gigabit backbone. They decided to provide the gigabit backbone because the local telco would not spend any money. The city was worried because they would need 50% of the market share to make it pay for itself. Guess what? They got 70% of the market share! When incumbents get lazy, there is a great opportunity!
Huntsville, Al, owns the electric utility. This provided them with the means and foundation to deploy broadband quickly and with an experienced player. They put in the backbone and leased it to Google Fiber. This is a win-win because Google didn’t’ have to deploy the backbone, the fiber is there and ready to use. They could move ahead quickly. The city maintained control and could make money off it right away with a large customer waiting. The negative is that people perceive the fiber being built with city funds, but it worked! They had a utility, an income plan, a customer, so why not do it? They can lease the fiber to anyone, so they are not bound to only one customer, but anyone who wants it or needs it. Awesome! Learn more at https://www.gru.com/GRUComFiberOptics.aspx.
Santa Monica, Ca built out their network without a municipal department. They did it by connecting public facilities then expanding from there. They have a dig once policy, and when someone would dig, they would lay fiber. Learn more at http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/santa-monica-city-net-fiber-2014-2.pdf. They took the slow approach, one that would not have any upfront costs but would remain steady and efficient.
Partial
Usually a public-private partnership, PPP, that the city supports and endorses, but the private partner will be the one doing the heavy lifting and running the business. This would rely heavily on the partner, and the city would give complete support and take some of the credit, but the private business would take the profits. Partnerships matter here more than anywhere. If the partner is an ISP (Internet Service Provider) or a nonprofit, they need to be sure they can do what they say they can do. It matters big time and reputations are key.
ISPs are everywhere, not all of them look good, but many of them provide broadband to the home or local business. They often are rooted in the community if they are local and they want to succeed. However, not all of them do, I’ll point that out farther down.
If you wonder about the nonprofit, I will give you an example of one that I worked on personally. In York, Pa, there is an organization called Crispus Attucks Association that sponsored an initiative to connect the local schools up to wireless broadband. While it went well, they are a shining example of a roll out to the schools in York County. This was one of the first of its kind. While it was later replaced with fiber, it’s an example of how a nonprofit took the lead to deploy broadband. This was over 10 years ago. Gigabit was not thought to be cost-effective back then.
Westminster, Md, is an example of how the community knew they need to do something to attract people from the cities of DC and Baltimore out to their rural area. Beautiful and scenic, but far from major highways. They knew they needed broadband, and decided on fiber.They hooked up with Ting, https://ting.com/blog/next-ting-town-westminster-md/, who was a smaller ISP eager to roll out fiber. The city looked at the fiber as infrastructure, like a building or bridge, seeing it as a city asset and letting Ting manage the operations and customer service and sales. The city has an asset, but little risk and they are not running the day-to-day business, Ting is.
Cleveland, Oh, decided to work with a nonprofit called OneCommunity, http://www.onecommunity.org/big-changes-onecommunity-evolves/ who is rolled out the network and is continuing to expand into other communities to increase the reach of broadband across Ohio. They are receiving support from the US Economic Development (EDA) Grant, https://www.eda.gov/grants/, continuing the work.
Where the city supports the rollout, maybe offers some rules and regulations that make it easier to get started and deploy, but otherwise, it hands off. Cities can still play a part in broadband development if they have companies in their area willing to take charge and make things happen.
East Lansing, Mi, has created the “Gigabit Ready” project which pulled in many groups like Michigan State University, Lansing Economic Act Partnership, various nonprofits, commercial property managers, and anyone else who would sign up. The goal was to roll out gigabit broadband, rather obvious, right? What did they do? They looked at the LEED program and thought, let’s do that for gigabit access. This lead to the creation of the Gigabit Certified Building Program, http://statenews.com/index.php/article/2012/07/msu_lansing_on_track_for_high_speed_internet, to set guidelines and requirements for buildings to add gigabit broadband. This helped Spartan-Net, (taken from the Michigan State Spartans I assume), to partner with DTN Management Co so they could roll out broadband across East Lansing and beyond!
Louisville, KY, worked with Louisville Fiber to create a website that allowed people to request gigabit service across Louisville. Why? So that lawmakers could see the need for speed, and it worked! Using the addresses they gathered, they built a layout of where the heaviest concentration was showing local officials the need. Louisville gave 20-year franchise agreements to BGN Networks, SiFi, and FiberTech. It also helped Louisville to be chosen as a potential Google Fiber City, (which means very little now).
College Station, TX, took a different approach. They put out an RFP to test the market. I personally hate this because when you’re on the other side, you do a lot of work that goes nowhere, but it served the city well because they got what they wanted. Suddenlink responded by promising to put in $250,000,000 into upgrading their network to make it gigabit capable, http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/GigaSpeed-Internet-Soon-to-be-Offered-in-BCS-276059641.html. Suddenlink got scared of having the government compete, so they got off their lazy ass and did something. College Station could motivate these guys into action! It all worked out for the residents.
In North Carolina, the NCNGN, North Carolina Next Generation Network, formed a group of universities and cities. Wake Forest, University of North Carolina, Duke, and North Carolina State got together to work with Carrboro, Cary, Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh to make this happen. This is a large group and has deep resources in knowledge, data, and money. Who saw this as an opportunity? AT&T moved in and started deploying fiber. Then, not to be left behind, Frontier Communications started their deployment. Finally, RST Fiber got rolling as well. Then Google started to deploy. Now you have all the competition to make it happen and affordable.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
This is part two of a three-part series. This has been taken from my upcoming book, Smart City Use Cases, with Smart City Development Notes.
Facilitator
Where the city supports the rollout, maybe offers some rules and regulations that make it easier to get started and deploy, but otherwise, it hands off. Cities can still play a part in broadband development if they have companies in their area willing to take charge and make things happen.
East Lansing, Mi, has created the “Gigabit Ready” project which pulled in many groups like Michigan State University, Lansing Economic Act Partnership, various nonprofits, commercial property managers, and anyone else who would sign up. The goal was to roll out gigabit broadband, rather obvious, right? What did they do? They looked at the LEED program and thought, let’s do that for gigabit access. This lead to the creation of the Gigabit Certified Building Program, http://statenews.com/index.php/article/2012/07/msu_lansing_on_track_for_high_speed_internet, to set guidelines and requirements for buildings to add gigabit broadband. This helped Spartan-Net, (taken from the Michigan State Spartans I assume), to partner with DTN Management Co so they could roll out broadband across East Lansing and beyond!
Louisville, KY, worked with Louisville Fiber to create a website that allowed people to request gigabit service across Louisville. Why? So that lawmakers could see the need for speed, and it worked! Using the addresses they gathered, they built a layout of where the heaviest concentration was showing local officials the need. Louisville gave 20-year franchise agreements to BGN Networks, SiFi, and FiberTech. It also helped Louisville to be chosen as a potential Google Fiber City, (which means very little now).
College Station, TX, took a different approach. They put out an RFP to test the market. I personally hate this because when you’re on the other side, you do a lot of work that goes nowhere, but it served the city well because they got what they wanted. Suddenlink responded by promising to put in $250,000,000 into upgrading their network to make it gigabit capable, http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/GigaSpeed-Internet-Soon-to-be-Offered-in-BCS-276059641.html. Suddenlink got scared of having the government compete, so they got off their lazy ass and did something. College Station could motivate these guys into
action! It all worked out for the residents.
In North Carolina, the NCNGN, North Carolina Next Generation Network, formed a group of universities and cities. Wake Forest, University of North Carolina, Duke, and North Carolina State got together to work with Carrboro, Cary, Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh to make this happen. This is a large group and has deep resources in knowledge, data, and money. Who saw this as an opportunity? AT&T moved in and started deploying fiber. Then, not to be left behind, Frontier Communications started their deployment. Finally, RST Fiber got rolling as well. Then Google started to deploy. Now you have all the competition to make it happen and affordable.
If we look at how broadband, gigabit especially is distributed, then what would we see? It takes a community. If one person wants it, too bad. If a community wants it and they want it bad, then it’s going to happen, eventually. That is something that the cable companies missed. They were so hell-bent on selling what they had that they could have missed this opportunity. They eventually were forced to upgrade and listen. Not they see the benefits of rolling out an all internet access system. They are going to save money on tariffs to run throughout the city. They are going to start scaling back their reliance on networks. They are going to let other providers deal with paying for network access and TV show. They are not stupid. They turned sour grapes into fine wine. Give them credit. They started looking at the big picture. At least Comcast did, and the others followed suit.
Yes, it does! Gigabit broadband went from $7,000 a month to $70 a month in a matter of a few years. Good for consumers, tough on the provider. When we get gigabit out to the masses, it will eventually become a commodity, but you still need to get it to the people. It could be fiber or wireless. People are willing to pay, but the providers will need to offer more than just access. Years ago, it was video like TV shows and on-demand movies. Now it’s internet access, wired and wireless, and let the people choose what they want from there.
The thing was, we had to start, businesses needed broadband, and they got it. Then everyone else wanted it, and it is soon going to be everywhere. We need to be connected. The next question is how? Wired or wireless? While the smartphones are a part of our everyday lives, do they really need gigabit? Does our laptop or tablet need more than Wi-Fi? Ask yourself; my opinion changes too often.
What about Wi-Fi?
Well, we all love Wi-Fi. It is a value-add, right? Does it add value?
Well, Philadelphia and Seattle had failed Wi-Fi rollouts, highly publicized and ugly. Should we let this discourage is or should we learn from these disasters? I say we learn!
While I am a fan of what’s coming out soon, like the CBRS and expanded Wi-Fi, several cities have successful programs. Philly just didn’t have the commitment to do something like this. Luckily, they had Comcast who picked up the slack. Comcast did a great job in Philly, especially since the city had no intention of putting any money into it.
Boston rolled out the “Wicked Free Wi-Fi” covering specific neighborhoods in an effort to increase downtown broadband usage. The city already has a fiber backbone, so why not extend it to the citizens via Wi-Fi?
Blacksburg Va has an amazing Wi-Fi system that was rolled out with crowdfunding by Techpad. Techpad is a local coworking and hacking community that raised $90,000 to make this happen.
Let’s not forget NYC, the city that rolled out Wi-Fi where the old telephone booths used to be. They put access points in every kiosk they put out. They give it away for free for tourists and residents to use to save on data usage on their smartphones. The LinkNYC project is the same as London’s LinkUK project. They both roll out the kiosks, which are really cool, have internet access and emergency call buttons, as well as Wi-Fi hotspots. Both cities rolled out hundreds of these units throughout the cities to create an amazing Wi-Fi system and an attractive kiosk that elevate it into the elite, smart city status. They look great! They make money through advertising and services. They are a win-win for any city.
Then there are all the cities, communities, and states that do nothing. Too many to mention. You know who you are. Yet, people continue to live in cities that have no initiative to improve. Why is that? I intend to move because, in my city, they do little, poor planning for the most part. In these areas is an opportunity for private companies to step up and try to get something rolling. Each city has different rules, so it may be too much effort and money to deploy in these cities. If that is the case, then you need to find a city that will work with you on economic development and build there. Don’t’ waste your time on areas that can’t or won’t work with you.
Not all Deployments are a Success!
In Seattle, it would have been city owned. The idea was to get gigabit rolled out across the city to improve internet connectivity anywhere. I don’t know what the agreement was between the city and Gigabit Squared, but it seems it fell apart. Maybe the company was too small or didn’t understand what the deployment would need or lacked commitment. It’s not clear to me what happened, but you can read more about it at https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/techflash/2014/01/seattles-fiber-deal-with-gigabit.html?page=all. The article hints that it could be more about the private company getting financing. It also hints that neither party worked on the local buy-in.
In Utah, there was a rollout y Utopia that was failing. So, Macquarie Financial took them over. This is a financial company, not an ISP or fiber company. Macquarie offered to cover the costs of the build out. However, the plan included a utility fee of $18 to $20 per household to continue. While this doesn’t sound like a lot, it is more money out-of-pocket to continue. They had opposition called, wait for it……… Unopia! How funny is that name? UNOPIA! I must admit, I like that name, but all the same, is there an alternative? Unopia wanted to stop unnecessary fees. I get that. Why should they pay for a rollout when they don’t want the service? The lesson here is that the community didn’t want broadband bad enough, so it stalled. Learn more by looking at http://www.centervilleut.net/downloads/administration/ulct_-_utopia-macppp_faqs.april2014.pdf for this older deal.
When Incumbents fight Back!
Yes, the incumbents fight back. Not always in a way that makes sense. It would make more sense if they would just build out a network, but many go to court first. Many whine or say no one wants it. Most just criticize.
Look at Monticello, MN, and the city-owned Fibernet. The city did it to spark competition. This really ticked off the local Telco, TDS, which first took Fibernet to court, and lost! Then they decided to build their own network, which if they would have done that in the first place none of this would have happened. TDS had to get off its butt and move! Then Charter, another incumbent, slashed their prices to $60 a month for access. The moral of this example is that the city’s plan worked perfectly, they increased competition and forced the incumbents to do something, which is what they would not do before. Before Fibernet, they did nothing. Lesson learned!
Then there was Lafayette, LA, who built the network through LUS Fiber, (Lafayette Utility Service), only to be criticized by Reason.org in a statement, http://reason.org/files/municipal_broadband_lafayette.pdf, showing that they fell short of predictions and have debt. Welcome to the world of business, it takes money and patience. However, did LUS overlook the business principles when planning? Did they get a commitment from the community to purchase it? Apparently not. LUS says they are cash positive, Reason.org says they are not. To be honest, I am not sure what the real deal is here.
Let’s be honest here. Cable companies didn’t’ care about internet access, even when the customers were begging for it. They didn’t care until they had competition. They saw AT&T and Verizon offer broadband and realized that there is a market for it. Now they are becoming ISPs. I mean true ISPs are offering more and more bandwidth. Comcast rolled out Wi-Fi successfully. Now that they know there is a need and people will pay for it, they are rolling it out. That’s because they are no longer a monopoly in many areas.
Google Fiber put some fear into them. So much so that they started becoming a thorn in the side of Google. In Nashville, I talked to a friend who saw the local cable company and AT&T do all that they could to block Google from attaching the fiber to their poles. Do you blame them? NO! It’s the name of the game. While you may think this would not stop Google, it did. They began to see the realities of competition, petty fights, permitting, and pole acquisition. It costs money before you make a dime. A completely different model than what they’re used to. So, what we see now is Google Fiber on hold hoping wireless is cost-effective. They will see that site acquisition is a killer there as well. When the site acquisition costs are more than all other expenses together, you see why small cells did not roll out by the masses.
Some States Prohibit Public Networks!
What about the states, they certainly would not stop the city from building a network, would they? Oh yes, they would! As incredible as this sounds, it is a real thing. Some states, in fact, many states have laws in that stop city ownership or control broadband roll networks. Our friends at BroadbandNow has a website at https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks-by-state/ that covers states with laws about broadband.
Colorado is a great example of control. The state that allows marijuana sales would not allow their cities to partner with Google Fiber to roll out broadband. It took an election to overturn the law.
It doesn’t always work out like that. In North Carolina and Tennessee, the FCC tried to have those state broadband regulations overturned, but the FCC lost. The laws remained.
The states with these laws are Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. The laws are geared towards cities that want to own or partially own broadband networks. I think the idea is that broadband should be competitive.
This parallels what many states are doing with small cell deployments for the carriers. They have been passing state laws that allow the carriers to roll out their small cells without the local municipality slowing them down. The CTIA has done a great job lobbying the states to make life easier for the carriers at the expense of the local cities.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
This is part one of a three-part series. This has been taken from my upcoming book, Smart City Use Cases, with Smart City Development Notes.
Smart City Broadband Initiatives
Are you curious about some broadband initiatives that are out there? Some broadband case studies that are have rolled out? What broadband initiatives have been successes and failures? What works better, the city owning it or a public-private partnership or private only?
I am always saying that broadband is the foundation of any smart city. Someone shared the Next Generation Network Connectivity Handbook. It’s publication by Gig.U, and it can be downloaded from http://www.gig-u.org/. Gig.U is a group that encourages the partnerships between cities and universities. They did a great job of putting together this document, published in December of 2016, showing past case studies of gigabit deployments in both wireless and wired. They cover success and failures.
Here is an outline of some of what is in this document, I highly recommend downloading it, after all, it is free!
First off, the make the point that CapEx and OpEx must be lower than the revenues coming in and it should be serving a purpose for the users. Pay attention, Value and Profit make the system sustainable! Value and profit make the system growable! It has to make money! That is something that most cities overlook because they think that the benefit will outweigh the revenue, but it will not. Revenue matters in the long run and the benefits matter up front. Up front we want buy-in and residents to love it. In the long run, we
need sustainability, so it does not bleed money in expenses.
Does it solve a problem for the
residents? So, they see the value in it? Will they pay for it? When you start a business, you need to answer these questions. Figure out the price point. Some cities can put a tax out there to pay for the system, but that is not popular in most cities.
One example that I love in this document is the cable companies. They saw broadband up to 1 Gbps as silly, but they really didn’t want to upgrade their system unless they had too. Guess what? They had to! BUT, after they got competition in first form the likes of Verizon, AT&T, and Google running fiber all over the place for a very reasonable cost to the consumer. It paid off. Now all the cable companies are touting higher speeds. They see value because they were losing market share. That’s amazing when you realize they had a monopoly for years in their neighborhoods. They had no competition, but the need for broadband and cheaper video hurt them. They thought they could control the market, but in the USE the market started swinging back with DirecTV and fiber competitors. They suddenly have to be strategic.
OK, let’s get back to the business of broadband. Once you build it, expect competition! If your business model works then more and more people will do it, just look the cable companies. While they had a monopoly for years, they got lazy. Now they have competition, and it’s hurting them. Not just from fiber, most of the younger generation realized that they have a smartphone that can do anything the cable company can do, so why pay for both? Get the picture? The landscape has changed, and if you just look at other companies that do what you do, then you only see part of the competitive landscape.
This is happening with everything because broadband is the pipe to end all pipes. It could be through fiber or wireless, but the internet has opened doors to everything unless you live in China, then it only has a few open doors and a lot of blocked websites.
There is one thing that almost any city can agree on. You need broadband in your city to compete. The question is, “How do we get it here?” This is where you can look at other examples of successes and failures.
Google Fiber was supposed to be the knight in shining armor, but they stopped. They say they are going to wait for wireless, probably CBRS, but to be honest, there are plenty of bands and products that could deliver broadband now. I think that Google realized the profit model was not what they had hoped for, but they never said that officially, they just stopped, laid off a bunch of people, changed some leadership in the company, and they started saying wireless would save the day.
More on Google fiber stopping http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article110655177.html, this is a great article because they talk about all the pain points that Google saw in the real world. TV is expensive, incumbents have more control of the poles than they ever thought possible, and maybe wireless will be easier. They also say demand is not there. I don’t get that excuse at all! It seems lame. I think they should say competition is fiercer than they thought. That is more like it. For me to sum it up, Google should have cherry-picked markets that didn’t have too much competition. They should have focused on tier 2 cities that would not only have appreciated their presence but don’t have an alternative. I live in Pennsylvania, where the cable companies rule. The rules here don’t make it an ideal state to deploy much of anything, but it has plenty of underserved cities that not only want broadband, but they need it to survive. The smaller cable companies will not make the investment until they have too. They won’t spend the money. This is an ideal target for someone like Google Fiber to deploy. But, alas, I am dreaming.
Where was I? Oh yes, economic development. Broadband is a foundation for economic development. We know that businesses need broadband to survive, but how do they get it? Many cities have a dig once policy, so if someone lays broadband, then many people need to get it in while he or she can. This really helps to get things moving and keep the competition behind you if they are late to the game. Fiber companies and deployment companies win! They can lay out the dark fiber and sell it later, not a bad model.
They also cover the 3 models that cities can look at.
Primary
This is where the city takes the lead by using public facilities to roll out the fiber and makes the investment to deploy. They use their assets to mount it. They are the provider. They may partner with someone, but generally, the city runs the business and takes the credit.
An example of this is the Chattanooga, TN, network. In 2010 the city decided to have a gigabit network available for homes. They rolled it out, and since then Volkswagen and Amazon both expanded to that area. We give the broadband credit since it was there and they took a chance to deploy. Their model served other cities like Wilson, NC, and Leverett, Ma.
They also talk about Ammon, Id, who also built the gigabit backbone. They decided to provide the gigabit backbone because the local telco would not spend any money. The city was worried because they would need 50% of the market share to make it pay for itself. Guess what? They got 70% of the market share! When incumbents get lazy, there is a great opportunity!
Huntsville, Al, owns the electric utility. This provided them with the means and foundation to deploy broadband quickly and with an experienced player. They put in the backbone and leased it to Google Fiber. This is a win-win because Google didn’t’ have to deploy the backbone, the fiber is there and ready to use. They could move ahead quickly. The city maintained control and could make money off it right away with a large customer waiting. The negative is that people perceive the fiber being built with city funds, but it worked! They had a utility, an income plan, a customer, so why not do it? They can lease the fiber to anyone, so they are not bound to only one customer, but anyone who wants it or needs it. Awesome! Learn more at https://www.gru.com/GRUComFiberOptics.aspx.
Santa Monica, Ca built out their network without a municipal department. They did it by connecting public facilities then expanding from there. They have a dig once policy, and when someone would dig, they would lay fiber. Learn more at http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/santa-monica-city-net-fiber-2014-2.pdf. They took the slow approach, one that would not have any upfront costs but would remain steady and efficient.
Partial
Usually a public-private partnership, PPP, that the city supports and endorses, but the private partner will be the one doing the heavy lifting and running the business. This would rely heavily on the partner, and the city would give complete support and take some of the credit, but the private business would take the profits. Partnerships matter here more than anywhere. If the partner is an ISP (Internet Service Provider) or a nonprofit, they need to be sure they can do what they say they can do. It matters big time and reputations are key.
ISPs are everywhere, not all of them look good, but many of them provide broadband to the home or local business. They often are rooted in the community if they are local and they want to succeed. However, not all of them do, I’ll point that out farther down.
If you wonder about the nonprofit, I will give you an example of one that I worked on personally. In York, Pa, there is an organization called Crispus Attucks Association that sponsored an initiative to connect the local schools up to wireless broadband. While it went well, they are a shining example of a roll out to the schools in York County. This was one of the first of its kind. While it was later replaced with fiber, it’s an example of how a nonprofit took the lead to deploy broadband. This was over 10 years ago. Gigabit was not thought to be cost-effective back then.
Westminster, Md, is an example of how the community knew they need to do something to attract people from the cities of DC and Baltimore out to their rural area. Beautiful and scenic, but far from major highways. They knew they needed broadband, and decided on fiber.They hooked up with Ting, https://ting.com/blog/next-ting-town-westminster-md/, who was a smaller ISP eager to roll out fiber. The city looked at the fiber as infrastructure, like a building or bridge, seeing it as a city asset and letting Ting manage the operations and customer service and sales. The city has an asset, but little risk and they are not running the day-to-day business, Ting is.
Cleveland, Oh, decided to work with a nonprofit called OneCommunity, http://www.onecommunity.org/big-changes-onecommunity-evolves/ who is rolled out the network and is continuing to expand into other communities to increase the reach of broadband across Ohio. They are receiving support from the US Economic Development (EDA) Grant, https://www.eda.gov/grants/, continuing the work.
Where the city supports the rollout, maybe offers some rules and regulations that make it easier to get started and deploy, but otherwise, it hands off. Cities can still play a part in broadband development if they have companies in their area willing to take charge and make things happen.
East Lansing, Mi, has created the “Gigabit Ready” project which pulled in many groups like Michigan State University, Lansing Economic Act Partnership, various nonprofits, commercial property managers, and anyone else who would sign up. The goal was to roll out gigabit broadband, rather obvious, right? What did they do? They looked at the LEED program and thought, let’s do that for gigabit access. This lead to the creation of the Gigabit Certified Building Program, http://statenews.com/index.php/article/2012/07/msu_lansing_on_track_for_high_speed_internet, to set guidelines and requirements for buildings to add gigabit broadband. This helped Spartan-Net, (taken from the Michigan State Spartans I assume), to partner with DTN Management Co so they could roll out broadband across East Lansing and beyond!
Louisville, KY, worked with Louisville Fiber to create a website that allowed people to request gigabit service across Louisville. Why? So that lawmakers could see the need for speed, and it worked! Using the addresses they gathered, they built a layout of where the heaviest concentration was showing local officials the need. Louisville gave 20-year franchise agreements to BGN Networks, SiFi, and FiberTech. It also helped Louisville to be chosen as a potential Google Fiber City, (which means very little now).
College Station, TX, took a different approach. They put out an RFP to test the market. I personally hate this because when you’re on the other side, you do a lot of work that goes nowhere, but it served the city well because they got what they wanted. Suddenlink responded by promising to put in $250,000,000 into upgrading their network to make it gigabit capable, http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/GigaSpeed-Internet-Soon-to-be-Offered-in-BCS-276059641.html. Suddenlink got scared of having the government compete, so they got off their lazy ass and did something. College Station could motivate these guys into action! It all worked out for the residents.
In North Carolina, the NCNGN, North Carolina Next Generation Network, formed a group of universities and cities. Wake Forest, University of North Carolina, Duke, and North Carolina State got together to work with Carrboro, Cary, Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh to make this happen. This is a large group and has deep resources in knowledge, data, and money. Who saw this as an opportunity? AT&T moved in and started deploying fiber. Then, not to be left behind, Frontier Communications started their deployment. Finally, RST Fiber got rolling as well. Then Google started to deploy. Now you have all the competition to make it happen and affordable.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
What are some smart city use cases? Well, here is Dallas. This is from my upcoming book on Smart City Use Cases.
You have been asking for smart city examples and what is in each smart city. Here is an example. This is from a new book to be released very soon called, Smart City Use Cases. We are always looking for real-world smart city examples. They are out there so why not collect many of them into a book? We all want to see what’s being done, well, here it is, one example. It is an overview but gives you an idea of what Dallas is doing.
Dallas
Of course, we all know where Dallas is, quite a city, in the heart of Texas. The larger part of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Home to over 1.2 million people.
I have been in that area for work over 15 years ago. It is a beautiful area. One that I really enjoy working in and love visiting. I would recommend anyone going there for to stay for vacation. Don’t get me wrong, they have their share of problems, like any city. They deal with traffic, crime, growth issues, and struggle to get people to live in the city limits. Not only that, but Texas has no state income tax, which is awesome! Let’s compare, the California state income tax is
over 9% and is as complicated as the federal income tax. That means you don’t have to give a chunk your paycheck to the state government each payday. A nice perk for living in Texas, specifically Dallas.
Sorry, I digress, why do we notice Dallas as a smart city? Well, they are actively moving into that area. They partnered with AT&T to move ahead with smart city innovation. They created the Dallas Innovation Alliance. It is their job to bring innovation to Dallas.
While I am not clear on what they mean by innovation, they do point out that they want to bring smart tech to the city and improve the connections. In 2016 they release a small online publication explaining what they intend to do and how they intend to do it, It explains how they are converting streets to smart lighting using LED lights and installing sensors to track air quality and crowd noise. There it is, the special sensors that go above and beyond smart lighting. The sensors sense air quality. Sensors that detect noise. These are what makes the poles so smart.
They mention the digital kiosks, again, these are the smart keystones of the city because they are symbolic of the smart city progression.
They mention network connectivity and specify the fiber build out and the addition of cellular in the city. They also mention public Wi-Fi which is what the citizens associate with anytime connections.
Finally waste management. They have plans in place to have solar-powered trash compactors for collection throughout the city.
Smart parking to allow available spaces to be monitored and broadcast to people looking for spaces. This should ease traffic congestion if people use the apps.
All of this is going to be made possible with the apps that connect all the information to the end-user. That is the key! Using a common app to allow for all of the sensors information to make the information useful. Installing all of this stuff is one thing, to make it accessible to the people that need it is another. Who needs it?
Open parking spaces – the drivers and city planners
Live video – police, fire, city planners, and the public
Air sensors – police, fire, and city planners
Noise sensors – police, city planners
Waste management – Waste department, city planners.
Broadband access – the public, everyone else.
Do you see who needs this the most, the city planners? They should be using this data to improve the city. Each year they should evaluate the data and create a new plan for development based on what they learn. It’s not just what they see, but what’s missing as well. They need to take it all into account. Make use of the data provided to them to improve and eliminate. Then they will have a cost-effective city that is on a positive growth track.
Who is a major partner in this venture? Dallas is working with AT&T to make this happen. AT&T and the DIA have created the “Smart Cities Living Lab” to understand how the changes will improve the city. This lab lets them see how to use intelligent LED lighting. They are testing the kiosks, specifically with the CIVIQ kiosk to understand how to build the Interactive Digital WayPoint, which is a model for the CIVIQ kiosk and really cool. They have been testing sensors with Ericsson. The Living Lab is pretty cool, but eventually, it has to go live.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
This is a chapter from my upcoming book about Smart City use cases.
It’s a good overview of the kiosk and how it is transforming major cities. This interactive kiosk will be the keystone of any smart city because it’s visible to people in the city. They can’t see the fiber or the cell sites or the Wi-Fi hotspots. They can see and interact with. It’s pretty nice how they can appreciate it like the Wi-Fi.
It’s not a kiosk! It’s the keystone to any smart city. A digital, interactive, video kiosk that you may see in a very large mall. It’s something that you think could not be outside, yet they are, and they earn revenue for the city. They are a beautiful piece of street furniture that we all notice and admire.
What can a kiosk do for a smart city? An interactive kiosk placed downtown can do a lot. As I said, it’s the keystone of the smart city. It’s a beacon of what the city has to offer. People walking around the city can see them stand out, they can see ads on them for movies, local restaurants, and local retailers. They can then walk up to it and
touch it to get directions to the nearest business. They can find the nearest bus stop, subway access, and cab stop. They could ask it where to go to eat for a specific type of restaurant. They could interact with it in a quick and convenient way that may not be so easy on their smartphone. It’s really a fun device.
What can it do for the city other than being the beacon of interactive public service to citizens and tourists? It can bring income to the city by adding Wi-Fi, getting paid for advertising, housing small cells, housing fiber hubs, be the smart parking meter interface, be the bike rental interface, and allow locals to download coupons to the nearest businesses.
Let’s not forget the emergency aspects. The kiosk can have sensors for air quality, gun detection, noise detection, and the ever important 911 push button interface with full video and possibly the control for lights around it. Push the 911 button, and the video feed goes live along with all the lights around it so that the 911 operator can see and record everything real time! Emergency dispatch loves this thing when they are used properly.
In New York City, they deployed 7,500 digital kiosks for 2 reasons, to allow users to access the internet and to deploy Wi-Fi for people on the street. This was no accident. It was something that people can see, touch, and use. It’s something to identify that the city wants to interact with citizens. While it didn’t always have a good reputation, it is a great way to show people how smart your city really is.
London did the same thing with LinkUK kiosks. It’s really a great concept. Both cities replaced their payphones with something very modern and attractive. What a great idea.
Kiosks are gaining popularity because they serve so many functions. They help visitors to find their way around and see what’s happening in that part of the city. They are street furniture that can house not only Wi-Fi but small cells. It can be a fiber hub. It could have wireless backhaul that connects to a fiber center at a building. The possibilities are all there. They also house applications for local businesses to track customers. Cameras and 911 call buttons can be added for public safety. They can be real-time alerts for Amber alerts, weather alerts, or evacuation notices if ever needed. All because it has a connection to a NOC and a big interactive screen for people to see. Don’t forget that it can bring in revenue from advertising.
When thinking of how to spread the news of your smart city, think about the foot traffic and take it from there.
The key to getting these deployed was the partnership between businesses and cities. They worked together. There is a way to make money off of these devices with advertising, nation and local. Also with apps, data analytics, and small cell rental.
The other way to fund digital kiosks is with public safety funds. What a great way to promote them, in the name of public safety for alerts, video surveillance and 911 call buttons. Think about it. One platform can be the e911 NOC’s link to the city.
Funding is always the issue, so the fact these things can generate revenue is amazing and very attractive. You just need to plan ahead. It’s being done today.
Revenue generation can be done several ways. Movie trailers are a big source of revenue where there is a large amount of traffic, larger cities. But let’s not forget the local businesses, they can advertise as well. Can you imagine the local business putting up an add for people walking on the street letting them know of the specials they will have in the next 2 hours? Maybe that happy hour starts in 15 minutes, a digital kiosk can put that out there in real time so that someone walking by can eat or drink at their fine establishment. Talk about targeted advertising. Let’ not forget about the data the kiosk can capture, the Wi-Fi hotspot it can provide, small cell rental it could house, be a fiber hub, provide apps to the people walking by. Even as a billboard for street traffic or the payment hub for parking meters or bike rental.
It’s going to be a game changer and one that is already rolling out to several cities and universities across the world. Many malls have these in because the maps are very localized. They also offer information for the people looking at it to get apps to their smartphone in real time, then the kiosk becomes part of the smartphone and more data can be tracked in real time across town or the mall. That really expands the reach of the kiosk beyond the spot it is planted. That’s why cities are dropping dozens across their cities, like Dallas, Kansas City, NYC, and more.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
How would you Initiate a Smart City Plan? What are some typical smart city approaches? I think I have a quick summary of what is out there. I added this to my upcoming book, Smart City Use Cases, which I think will cover many of the smart city rollouts that have already happened. How they approached it, and why they did it.
The thing that I see, in most cases, is that cities have a typical approach which stems from a few motivational factors.
First, what problem are you going to solve? Start with the end in mind.
Next, you need money, grant money is a big one that cities look for. You may base your problem around the grant money, and that’s OK because it will get your teams moving into problem-solving mode.
Then, future proof. This is critical to sustain your initiatives and have them seen in a positive light. You want your legacy to be a great thing, something that can be built on, not replace right away. You also want something that residents and local businesses appreciate.
Solve Problems
This means that cities need a service, so they incorporate it into smart city services. This helps with the publicity and buy in. One thing you learn about government and large companies, you need to buy in. How do you get buy-in? You make it popular, sexy, and build it up as something you can’t live without.
This is where the smart city play becomes a necessity. If the city has a garbage problem, they could just hire people to pick up the garbage, or maybe they could create a high-tech solution which may cost more now, but in the long run, it is automated and has lower maintenance costs than hiring 100 new people to do the same thing. It won’t be much more CapEx, but it will be lower OpEx over the long run, AND it will be labeled as a smart city service! We all know that smart city services are sexy, so why not own it!
Grant Money
If there is grant money, cities look at winning it, and they go after it. Not all, but if they think they have shot, it is a great way to get
started. The federal government, in the US, handed out money for contests they started in 2015. It was a great way to spark interest. Cities had several options to get the money, but it wasn’t all about the money! They got exposure, publicity, and partners. That’s right, the smart people who wanted a smart city got some smart partners. The feds did a lot to make this happen, and they knew it would spark the economy to create a new industry, the smart city industry.
Columbus, Ohio, won the department of transportation’s challenge which gave them $140M USD in grant money! Awesome for Columbus, a great place to visit and a smart city run by smart people. They get money for the autonomous vehicle research, battery research, putting in charging stations, and a healthy check to upgrade their public transportation systems. So radical that they get a $140M head start in all the other cities. Learn more at https://techcrunch.com/2016/06/23/columbus-ohio-officially-winner-of-dot-smart-city-challenge-and-140-million-in-innovation-grants/ if you’re interested.
We all know this is about the services that are coming, but if the feds would not have gotten involved, then it would not have come to the forefront. I have a list of cities below but let’s look at what companies jumped on the bandwagon.
AT&T – they started an entire smart city division with services and IOT planning, end to end.
Nokia – they have so many smart city strategies that your head will spin.
Ericsson – they moved into this because it has so many synergies with what they are already doing.
Black and Veatch – it fits right into their game plan to deploy across any city.
Crown Castle Inc. – they see the small cell and fiber opportunities here, they know it’s an opportunity.
Microsoft – actually, if you look back in history, Bill Gates saw the smart home 20 years ago, and it’s just now becoming mainstream. Microsoft sees the potential for more software and services for smart city applications. They see the huge payback.
Amazon – you read it right, Amazon. You see the cloud will be a huge part of the smart city backbone, so Amazon is on the cutting edge for cloud services. Also, they see value in the drone delivery, although who knows if they will pursue actual mass drone deployment. They also want people connected 24/7 so said people could purchase from Amazon 24/7. (I hope people buy my books 24/7!)
Apps companies because they see opportunity when people are connected. Look at how the smartphone changed the world and added many new businesses where people can use an app to make their lives better, or worse depending on your perspective.
Public safety, meaning police, fire, rescue, ambulance, and all the companies that supply them. Public safety needs You know, live video needs cameras and broadband, emergency workers need real-time connectivity wherever they are. Do you see the dots connecting? Do you get it? Broadband provided by the internet access provider, fiber by suppliers, rolled out by deployment teams, parts provided by suppliers, designed by engineers, made useful by apps and programs and wireless connectivity so that emergency workers have access where they are, not back at the dispatch center only. Do you see the dots connecting?
Any local tech business in that city will be a winner, they can participate, or they can offer new services based off of what the city is offering.
Future Proofing
The need to future proof will help smart city growth. Most cities want to retain their identity, and that is great. However, San Antonio didn’t just keep the Alamo and forget about expanding the city or growth or try to attract sports and business to their area. They know that you need to hold on and preserve history, but you also need to add high-tech services to grow the business.
Hence, future proofing will be a key element to any city. They want to do two major things, attract business and residential growth, the two should be looked at as one), AND they want to become a safe city with public safety a prime focus. All of this adds up to new services and will be the foundation for growth. Future proofing will be a key element for any city if they want to become a player in the world economy.
I would use the California cities like San Diego, Chula Vista, San Jose, Long Beach, and so much more I missed. They know that they need to be innovative and attract business. They can’t rely on the state, who has a very high-income tax, to attract people to the state, they know they must be innovative. When I look at them, I am impressed by what they have done and the approach they all have taken. They inspire me to remain motivated in this area.
I also look at Kansas City, often overlooked, but not to be outdone by anyone. They have come a long way and continue to expand. Kansas City has added interactive kiosks, broadband, and Wi-Fi so that for years to come residents and tourist alike can enjoy it and appreciate all that KC has to offer. They know that it will build off the foundation they put in.
When I visit any of the cities mentioned above, I truly appreciate all the services, connectivity, and beauty of each one. Each city makes me feel safe and connected.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
Fixed Wireless is a part of 5G that many carriers want to roll out quickly. They see it as a new form of revenue and a way to compete with the cable companies. The cable companies see it as a way to extend the coverage that they already have and as a stepping stone to mobility.
Fixed wireless access, FWA, is already a solid part of the 5G deployment for a few reasons. It is in the higher spectrum, like 24GHz and 28GHz, where the carrier or cable company can set up a fixed access point and shoot it to several buildings or businesses or homes from one location. Now, it only makes sense in urban or a dense suburban area.
It is going to be part of the 5G network slicing that we have all heard about. There is a spectrum, like CBRS, mmwave, and cmwave that will make it or break it. Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint already are testing this on MIMO antennas. They are counting on new income streams. The question will be, what is the ease of install to the end-user, the consumer, you and me? Do we still need someone to come out and wire up the house? I hope not! Do we need someone like the DISH TV guys to put an antenna on the roof? Hopefully not in the city. Alternatively, maybe, can we just put a unit in the window that could receive the licensed or lightly licensed signal then transmit Wi-Fi in the home? Wouldn’t that be cool? Just like the wireless modems, we used to know. Now they are on steroids giving us speeds of 50Mbps and up. That is the dream right, bad weather or good, power or no power (UPS backup) that businesses and homes have massive broadband that we can set up in under an hour, and take with us if we move.
What is Fixed Wireless?
It is a fixed wireless access point talking to a fixed wireless subscriber point. A simple data connection. It’s that simple. It’s a way to extend the fiber from a fixed point to its destination without the cost of running fiber to each location. In theory, it should be cheaper.
Think of your internet access at your home. Many of you have cable modems or fiber or DSL or satellite. Fiber would be FTTH, which you may call Verizon FIOS or AT&T U-Verse. The wired solutions are expensive for the larger companies to deploy, just ask Google who thought they could do it for less money but learned the hard way that physical attachment to poles takes more than just goodwill to the city. I talked to my friend in Nashville where the poles had rights of refusal by AT&T and the local cable companies that did NOT want Google to play in their neighborhoods. It did not matter what the city said; whoever had rights to the poles had the final say!
That is where the wireless option looks attractive for many reasons. 5G technology, like cmwave, mmwave, and CBRS can help make this happen. We still need fiber, that part is crucial, but we do not need to run it to every home. There is an opportunity to build out FWA to the home using 3.5Ghz or 28GHz, all depending on the location and distance to the BTS.
By the way, this has been done before with microwave connecting buildings for telecom services. It’s not new. It is just cheaper and faster and better. We are an all-IP network now which makes the transport invisible to the network. Now we have a spectrum that we can use with better technology. We can shape the broadband rollout to improve the broadband infrastructure in a profound way. The technology has arrived.
Can we get more spectrum? It looks like the US FCC took the first steps, they have opened 28GHz (27.5–28.35GHz), 37GHz (37–38.6GHz), and 39GHz (38.6–40GHz) for this purpose. Also, 7GHz of the unlicensed spectrum from 64–71GHz. If you remember, some of these bands were used in the past to deliver point to point, PTP, microwave for building access. Now that the equipment is changing and becoming more cost-effective, it can be used in new applications. MIMO antennas and systems are also helping the cause. Multipoint radios are becoming more and more available. Technology has come a long way!
It looks like LTE will be the foundation of the format. It could be mmwave or spectrum they have for LTE today. The carriers will tell you that this is 5G, but it has more to do with advanced LTE being able to push the limits using carrier aggregation in the current spectrum and making new spectrum multipoint. Carrier aggregation and MIMO makes larger wireless broadband realistic.
With mmwave, we have very large bands. The great news is that it could be deployed quickly. I think it will be lightly licensed because the coverage area is so small. I also think it could be the solution to getting large amounts of spectrum to building in a short time. The current systems are point to point, but they are rolling out multipoint systems. There is an article in Gigabit Wireless that helps to explain more about mmwave and the multipoint technology in that band.
1Gbps links will make it possible to run 100Mbps to multiple homes from one cell, be it a small cell or a Macro. Macros and Wi-Fi can do that now. All the carriers are promising this.
I believe that we will see a fixed wireless solution very soon. I believe that 100Mbps to the house via a wireless link is very realistic. This will be a game changer that will have a dramatic effect on our daily lives.
Have the outdoor wireless connect to something simple and effective indoors. Let the people see the signal level for the outdoor connection, like DISH used to do, and make it broadcast Wi-Fi inside and offer wired Ethernet. If we can get this, life is great. We can connect our own router or use what they give us.
Spectrum for 5G FWA
Let’s look at the 5G spectrum. I’m not sure if any of you saw it, but the 5G Americas group put together a great sheet on the 5G spectrum. I have the link so go ahead and download it.
I don’t see this spectrum as a mobile solution, but more of a fixed solution. That could change. This is going to be a thorn in the side of the cable and ISP business model. Why? It’s a new competitor that will have the reach. They have a large customer base. They know how to steal those customers. Remember, fewer millennials are watching traditional TV, they watch on demand as most of you do. Don’t deny it, do you really sit down and watch a show at the designated time or do you watch it on Amazon or Netflix or Zulu or with your DVR?
To be fair, the 5G Americas Spectrum document that I referenced above also has a quick blurb in it about CBRS, and I quote “Other bands of interest, From the point of view of global harmonization in the 3 to 5 GHz range as the main mid-range spectrum target for 5G, interests have been expressed in use of this range for 5G in the United States. This could potentially include current CBRS band (3.55-3.7 GHz) and beyond (e.g., up to 4.2 GHz).” The CBRS will play a large part because the carrier doesn’t want to deploy small cells everywhere, in fact, they are going to let that up to the business owners and landlords to do. They won’t admit this but I think they are looking for a neutral host solution and CBRS is a great solution! Licensed and protected and it could potentially have multiple carriers on one small cell. A multi-carrier small cell solution. If you think this is crazy, have you ever heard of Wi-Fi? Does it discriminate based on a carrier in your home? NOPE! It just connects, so this will be a stepped-up version of that where it will connect, but it may discriminate based on your carrier. Just apply the proper ID, or ESSID to connect.
The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
The great thing about 5G is that we will soon see private LTE networks. How is this possible? Because we finally have spectrum open to businesses everywhere. We already have license-free spectrum in 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz that we currently use for Wi-Fi. The FCC is going to allow users to use LTE in that spectrum. The issue is sharing the spectrum. It’s not efficient in public places. Where you will see it make a real difference is in your home. Suddenly when the devices have LTE, you can install a private LTE license free network in your home. That is cool.
Now, imagine that you can build a licensed LTE network for your small business or to serve your IOT needs to for very high security on your device? You could have your device registered with an SAS company to coordinate your CBRS spectrum so that it’s your spectrum in that building, office park, or wherever. You could even use it on your smartphones when they add that spectrum to their RF boards. This is expected to happen in 2018.
Why Private LTE?
If you want a fast and reliable network, then a private LTE network is the way to go. You could improve security by going with a licensed carrier. That is why the CBRS spectrum will be a good fit. You can easily grab a lightly licensed spectrum for your personal use, and it will make your network very secure. If you need the speed and reliability that Wi-Fi may not provide, then this is a good alternative.
Why would I want a private LTE system?
The big thing now is the industrial IOT functions. This is where you may have a manufacturing plant or a warehouse where the latency and reliability are critical. This is an IOT function where IOT would make a difference, and it could change the way your machines communicate. It would be dedicated to your specific purpose.
I would like to say that your devices would have it but that is about a year away. The latest iPhone did not have this spectrum in it nor did it have the 600MHz spectrum that T-Mobile is building out now. iPhone appears behind the latest technology spectrum.
However, someday all devices will have the CBRS spectrum in them, and your device can hand off to your secure internal network and then back to the carrier’s network, in theory anyway. The idea is that we can do so much more with our devices that could be dedicated to our specific business. That is the dream that we can run our specific applications that matter to our business. Let’s say on our tablets. If you want a model, look at any scanner system for inventory, they use this now to scan everything. Imagine when we can put applications that require more bandwidth on smaller devices and take them anywhere. Our smartphone is like that now but on the carrier’s network and Wi-Fi.
Wi-Fi serves a great purpose, but security has been the issue. If we can dedicate a specific channel in the CBRS to a specific function on your smartphone, it will be very secure. It all depends on what your priority will be to achieve your networking goal. Is it easy access, security, functionality, or all 3?
What is the CBRS?
The citizens broadband Radio spectrum. This is currently specific to the United States, but it is going to open everywhere if it’s successful. US CBRS is the 3.5GHz band, which runs from 3550 to 3700 MHz band. CBRS stands for Citizens Broadband Radio Service (in remembrance of the CB, Citizens Band). It is a licensed spectrum. There is Military radar, and Earth stations that use this spectrum that is grandfathered in and have priority access. That will not change. There will be a Spectrum Allocation System (SAS). Currently in the US only, but Europe is looking to follow suit with Licensed Shared Access, (LSA).
The spectrum is 3.65GHz to 3.7GHz which was used for WiMAX. Now the FCC is opening that spectrum and an addition 150MHz spectrum for 3 types of users.
What the SAS will manage:
incumbent access including the federal government and satellite providers.
priority access licenses (PAL) which are 7 10MHz licenses to be awarded to the highest bidders. PALs will be protected from the GAA users. PAL will include commercial users like carriers, rural operators, are a 3-year license with only 1 renewal term allowed now, and will be in the 3500 to 3650 portion of the spectrum. One licensee can hold only 4 PAL licenses.
general access user, (GAA) which is “Licensed by rule” which requires the rules to be followed. This will be dedicated in the 3650 to 3750 MHz portion of the band.
A PAL may gain additional GAA spectrum.
Companies that currently have this spectrum licenses will be able to keep their This was used for WiMAX in the past. Now it will be LTE focused.
Licensing will be done by the Spectrum Allocation System, (SAS), which is a group that can charge for these services, currently being led by Google and Federated Wireless.
Hardware vendors include SpiderCloud, Ruckus, Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, ip.access, and Acceleron.
The 3 tiers are:
Incumbent access – this is for users that are already using this spectrum for the military, ground stations, government, and so on. They will be protected.
Priority Access Licenses (PAL) – this is for anyone who is willing to pay a premium to own 10 MHz of spectrum. The current model is for 3 years with one renewal, that could change.
General Authorized Access (GAA) – this is for anyone who wants to use it if they have an authorized device that will connect to the SAS, Spectrum Allocation Service, and accept the assigned frequencies. You must complete a questionnaire and pay a small subscription fee, but it’s going to very reasonable.
The key here is that the SAS will coordinate all users, protect the PAL users and the incumbents.
No PAL users will be on the lower spectrum, and no GAA will be in the upper spectrum.
PAL users will most likely be the carriers or anyone who is willing to pay for dedicated spectrum for data applications, like broadband, IOT, VOIP, or anything that could be a wide area densification project.
GAA users could be for anyone in a building doing any type of LTE network. This could be private and secure coverage in a building or IOT applications or manufacturing applications that require very low latency. A private LTE network on a lightly licensed network.
A PAL can grab GAA spectrum but a GAA can’t grab PAL spectrum.
While the GAA users should not interfere with each other, it could happen, not much you can do.
All users need to comply with the FCC rules.
Your Private LTE Network
You can use the licensed or unlicensed spectrum to build your own private LTE network. This will be part of the 5G ecosystem. It could be a separate network slice, from my perspective.
You will need:
A mini-core to control your systems and to be the interface to the internet.
Radios that are on the band and spread throughout your little area.
What will they control? Devices, smartphones, laptops? What will they connect?
User Equipment which is the end user’s device. It could be a card to interface with your device if doing IOT. It could be your smartphone, which should have this spectrum in it starting in 2018. Maybe your laptop will be able to connect or have a USB interface that could connect.
Now you see that there is a way to get that private LTE network, but where do you get the parts for a CBRS network? Look at the list below:
Any major OEM has the equipment, like Nokia, Ericsson, or Samsung, but they generally have little interest in helping a smaller business with something like that. That’s been my experience.
As for end-user devices, I am still trying to figure that one out.
There you go, figure it out. It’s so easy a wireless guy can do it. Maybe an IT guy can do it, but who knows.
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The foundations below do beautiful work, helping families in their time of need. Climbers often get seriously injured or die on the job. The foundations below support those families in their time of greatest need!
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