Wi-Fi Valley
SILICON VALLEY SPECIALIZES in spectacular ideas. Unfortunately, it’s often unclear until far too late whether they will result in spectacular successes or spectacular failures. The latest innovation from up north is a plan to blanket the entire 1,500-square-mile region with high-speed wireless access to the Internet.
Considering the track record of such networks, the project’s business risks are as great as its ambition. But the effort also could provide a roadmap for Los Angeles and other regions as the demand grows for ubiquitous connectivity to the Internet.
Late last month, three dozen cities in Silicon Valley invited tech firms to submit proposals for building the nation’s largest wireless Internet-access network. It would include a no-frills offering that would be free (or nearly so) and a higher-priced plan with faster access and more security. The network would be designed, owned and operated by the private sector, at no cost to taxpayers.
The no-tax-dollars caveat is more than just penny-pinching by local officials; it’s an important hedge against the project’s risks. It also means that the powerful local phone and cable operators, which dominate the market for high-speed Internet access, can’t dash off nastygrams to lawmakers about unfair competition. Instead, they have to pretend to welcome the competition, even as they talk smack about how unreliable the wireless service is likely to be.
Whether anyone can find a way to make the network profitable is an open question. Given its vast scale and the tricky topography of the region, it won’t be cheap. Nor is it clear how much advertisers will support it, or how much personal information about users they will want.
On the other hand, a wireless broadband network makes new services possible. Some, such as better communications among police and rescue workers and remote meter reading, would benefit local governments and taxpayers. Other beneficiaries include homes and small businesses in areas underserved by phone and cable companies.
Some companies are so eager to win contracts that they have offered to build networks in selected communities for free. Those pitches prodded the communities to band together to seek a regional network. In the meantime, so many people have taken advantage of free wireless connections at Silicon Valley’s public library system that several branches have extended access into parking lots and parks. When the Portola Valley branch closed last fall for seismic retrofitting, people still came to the site with their laptops to tap into the wireless service.
This kind of hunger for Internet access is one reason to be optimistic about the new effort’s chances. Ultimately, the whole state stands to gain from the wireless proving ground in Silicon Valley.
