Wi, Thank You!
The City of Miami Beach Offers Free Wi-Fi to All

By Lee Molloy

Patrons of Miami Beach cafes may no longer have to subscribe to pricey wireless services. File photo

The Miami Beach urban landscape will never be the same.

On Oct. 20, residents and visitors all over the city will be able to connect to a new, relatively long awaited, free service provided by the city: internet access via wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi). Those surfing the net outdoors should experience 95 percent coverage in Miami Beach, and those inside (but close to an outside wall), and no higher up than the second floor, will enjoy more than 70 percent coverage. The coverage is all thanks to more than 370 nodes, or transmission points, installed by the city-contracted provider Wireless-Nets, Ltd., around the city.

At least for now, access has none of the usual hoops of government bureaucracy. A test run on Lincoln Road on Wednesday showed that logging in required nothing more than choosing a username and password, and agreeing to the terms and conditions.

Users of the service can surf 24/7, check e-mail and even download files without paying a dime. However, according to the City of Miami Beach website, one should think very carefully before trading in a DSL subscription or cable modem, because those services are probably going to offer a higher level of performance than you can expect from the city’s network.

“If you need to have it on all the time, every day, I don’t know this is the right network for you,” Chief Financial Officer of the City of Miami Beach Trish Walker told The Lead. “It’s not for critical operations.”

For example, the city Wi-Fi will be delivered at a minimum rate of 1 megabit per second (Mbps) of connectivity. However, Atlantic Broadband’s most popular service (which costs $36.95 to $50.95 per month depending on the cable package) will work at up to 8 Mbps. The difference can be very important when streaming video or music, or downloading very large files.

In 2005, Miami Beach City Manager Jorge Gonzalez announced plans to make the City a wireless community by mid-2006. However, it took more than three more years to actualize the plan, and bring the service to the community.

Walker explained that the Miami Beach Wi-Fi was “primarily implemented for public safety.”

Initially, the network was used by police officers and firefighters, and then building inspectors, code compliance officers and for parking applications. The network used AirCards, which are modems that plug into the computer and make use of cellular technology to access the Internet. 

The city then realized that “maybe, for not much more money, we might be able to put up a network,” Walker said.

According to Walker, IBM was chosen to set up the system, and Wi-Fi expert Jim Geier of Wireless-Nets was recruited to help implement and test the network.

The contract with IBM cost the city a little over $5 million. In addition to the work completed so far related to installing the network, the contract also includes maintenance of all of the infrastructure, replacement equipment, and operations for six years. The ‘after service’ portion of the agreement includes a help desk for the public and technical response for city officials. The six-year after service contract will come into effect after the network has been launched and tested without failures for 90 days.

Not everyone, however, is pleased with the idea of free Wi-Fi.

“It is no secret that Atlantic Broadband, along with AT&T, objected strenuously to the use of taxpayers dollars” to fund the project, Donna Garofano, Senior Vice President of Government Relations for Atlantic Broadband told The Lead. Garofano added that “nothing in the ensuing four years [since the project was announced] has caused Atlantic Broadband to change its position.”

Garofano cites two main reasons for the company’s objection to the project, the first being one of fairness.

“Anytime there is public funding of this kind of venture, it is in and of itself unfair competition,” she said.

Walker, however, refutes the claim and compares the city Wi-Fi network to other community services that are not purely profit motivated. For example, providing after-school care in city parks at a much lower rate than a private after-school daycare center can provide.

“We’re not competing,” Walker said, “we’re providing a public service.”

Garafano also points out that other cities have failed at attempts to create a public Wi-Fi network, including Orlando and Oakland, Michigan. And furthermore, Philadelphia’s network, according to Garafano, is “barely limping along.” She also doesn’t think having a service that can’t be used above the second floor in a tall building-heavy city like Miami Beach makes much sense.

“Its design and implementation is clearly not suitable for a vertical city,” Garafano said.

Conversely, Walker thinks that the relatively small size of Miami Beach will make the project a success and that the city has a “geographical advantage” over those other cities.

Ultimately though, Garafano thinks the problems with Miami Beach’s Wi-Fi are going to stop most people from giving up their Atlantic Broadband service.

The city’s network “is not going to impact our business in a very significant way,” Garafano said.

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