Mayor John Street held the press conference yesterday. You can download the full business plan here.
As expected, the system will be run by a nonprofit corporation and designed and built by private vendors. But the big news is open, competitive ISP access to the infrastructure. From the press release:
The Committee’s report made the following key recommendations:P.S. MuniWireless has an interview with Philadelphia tech czar Dianah Neff about the plan.
Create a nonprofit corporation to manage the deployment of the wireless network - The Committee recommended a non-profit corporation be established to oversee the implementation of the proposal. The non-profit will receive its start-up funding from foundation grants, bank loans and other non-city sources. Within four years, the non-profit is projected to be debt free and generating positive cash flow.
Have private companies design, deploy and manage the network - Through a request for proposal (RFP) process, the non-profit will outsource the design, deployment and management of a citywide wireless network.
Provide network access to private service providers at low wholesale prices - The non-profit will make access to the wireless network available to private Service Providers (SPs), institutions and other nonprofits at low wholesale prices. Individuals and businesses will be able to purchase broadband access from these parties at what had been dial-up prices. There are currently at least 430 dial-up Internet service providers who operate in Philadelphia. SP’s will be responsible for marketing the service, billing subscribers and providing customer service and technical support.
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