Edison agrees to Santa Ana Wi-Fi testing
Southern California Edison Co. is taking a first step toward supporting municipal wireless Internet networks after holding up such projects in cities throughout the region for more than 18 months.
The state’s second-largest power utility has agreed to let EarthLink Inc. build a small network using Edison streetlights in Santa Ana as part of a wider-ranging trial of wireless gear.
“This is long overdue,” said Esme Vos of MuniWireless.com, an authority on such high-speed wireless projects. “Edison has been the biggest stumbling block for Southern California cities.”
Results from the trial, which began quietly late last month, should be available by mid-April.
Light poles are crucial to creating high-speed wireless networks because of their height and visibility and the minimal amount of electricity needed for the antennas.
Most of Edison’s 613,000 streetlights are in 183 Southern California cities, which need the utility’s permission to use the poles for Wi-Fi systems. Los Angeles and Anaheim have not been held up by Edison because they own their power services. Los Angeles announced plans last week for a citywide Wi-Fi system; Anaheim has one partially built.
Wi-Fi networks are hot items because municipal officials see them as helping attract businesses, improve city services and ensure reliable, low-cost Internet access for all residents.
Aided by Internet and wireless companies such as EarthLink and MetroFi Inc., more than 300 U.S. cities are planning, building or operating broadband Wi-Fi systems.
Edison has stymied efforts in several Southern California cities because of concerns that the antennas might degrade electricity service. “We want to ensure that the Wi-Fi equipment does not negatively impact SCE’s electric grid,” said Michael Montoya, director of Edison’s advanced engineering division.
Edison never rejected requests by cities in its 50,000-square-mile service area to put radio gear on its streetlights and utility poles; it simply didn’t act on those requests, failing to start tests or to explain what steps, if any, it was taking.
Some suburban officials still distrust Edison’s motives in testing the antennas.
“It seems like the same old song and dance of delay,” said Ken Desforges, Diamond Bar’s information services director. “Tens of thousands of these antennas are up on light poles nationwide, and nobody is having a problem.”
Others say testing is needed because of Edison’s unusual streetlight circuitries and automated power delivery structures.
“We’re confident that Edison is doing everything it can,” said Kevin Tonoian, Santa Clarita’s technology services manager.
Last summer, after cities complained publicly about Edison’s delays, a utility executive said cities needed to give it antennas to test, but none did because they believed the technology to be already proven.
By the end of the year, 10 Southern California cities had asked EarthLink to work with the utility to resolve the impasse, said Donald B. Berryman, president for municipal wireless networks at the company.
EarthLink went to Edison and in January the two sides worked out the details for testing the equipment.
“There’s a lot of demand from cities, and we’re pretty confident we’ll get through this without a problem,” Berryman said.
Montoya said that Edison’s circuits were designed decades ago simply to power the lights, and that the utility worries they won’t be able to handle even the slight load that antennas add.
Most utilities use their regular distribution lines to power streetlights, which would allow for increased electrical loads, he said.
Edison wants to make sure that the streetlights can handle the added load and that the radio frequencies emitted by wireless antennas don’t interfere with automated gear used in Edison’s systems to reroute electricity.
“Those are the two biggest reasons” for the testing, Montoya said.
The four-month trial began with laboratory tests on radio frequencies of antennas from five different Wi-Fi manufacturers.
For a field test, EarthLink will put antennas on about 45 streetlight poles in a Santa Ana neighborhood near the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways.
Berryman said the typical antenna draws about 18 watts of power, with a larger gateway-type antenna drawing about 25 watts.
Even if the antennas pass muster, other issues, such as possible payments to lease space on the poles, would need to be ironed out.
Santa Clarita’s Tonoian was hopeful. “When Edison gives cities the ability to deploy wireless networks,” he said, “Santa Clarita will be ready.”
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