Civitium's Blog - The Local Loop

Author:	Greg Richardson	Created:	8/21/2008 2:15 PM
Welcome to Civitium's Blog: The Local Loop.

Vice President Biden to Visit Georgia

By Greg Richardson on 12/14/2009 7:01 AM

The AJC reports that VP Joe Biden will visit Georgia this week to make a stimulus-related announcement.

Johannesburg Makes a Bold Move

By Greg Richardson on 2/27/2009 7:46 AM

The City of Johannesburg, South Africa has committed R1bn ($100M USD) to build a next-generation broadband infrastructure throughout the city. The initiative seeks to "reduce the cost of telecommunications, improve service delivery and increase access to IT for residents." The move follows South Africa's economic stimulus program to spend over R780-billion ($79B USD) on large infrastructure projects over the next three years. Joburg Mayor Amos Masondo recently unveiled

NTIA Posts Notice of Broadband Grant Meetings

By Greg Richardson on 2/25/2009 1:24 PM

The NTIA has posted a notice in the Federal Registry that it will begin holding meetings with interested parties on Monday, March 2, 2009, in connection with the broadband grant programs described in the Broadband Data Services Improvement Act and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. All interested parties are invited to schedule a meeting.

Details can be found here.

Broadband Provisions of the Stimulus Bill

By Greg Richardson on 2/18/2009 12:59 PM

Yesterday in Denver, President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which has been referred to as the stimulus bill. Links to the final legislation can be accessed here. Our interpretation of the broadband-related provisions of the Act are provided below.

At a high-level, the Act provides for roughly $7.2B in funding for broadband-related projects. This $7.2B is to be administered by two organizations; the NTIA and USDA/RUS.

Fiber to the Burbs

By Greg Richardson on 10/22/2008 7:40 AM

Detroit's population was 1.8 million in 1950. Today it's estimated at 916,000, a decline of almost 50%. It would be easy to chalk this up to industrial decline, particularly with the slow death spiral of the American auto industry. But, this decline in urban population is not unique to Detroit. From 1950 to 2000, Chicago declined by 20%. Boston and Philadelphia by 26%. Washington DC by 28%.

Where did everyone go? Data suggests they headed to the burbs. The metropolitan areas surrounding these cities all increased their populations dramatically; ranging from 25% (in Philadelphia) to 178% (in DC.) Sadly, the great migration may be just getting started.& Read More »

The Convergence of Technology and Community Planning

By Greg Richardson on 10/11/2008 9:26 AM

Professional (community) planning has evolved since the early twentieth century to become a mainstream activity within almost all communities. I'd be hard pressed to find a community of any size that didn't have some form of comprehensive plan; dealing with issues such as land use, parks and recreation,transportation, water systems streetscaping and so on.

Technology master planning, on the other hand, has emerged in a few dozen communities only over the past decade, and in very few cases has it been tightly integrated with the professional planning process.

There are two schools of thought about whether and to what extent these two disciplines will continue to co-exist or converge going forward.

Network Neutrality Trumped by Market Forces

By Greg Richardson on 9/29/2008 10:39 AM

While the debate over network neutrality drones on between professors, theorists and policy wonks, the Internet marches on. Telephone, cable and Internet companies are waging war on each other, trading blows and counter-blows; bluffing spectrum bids; throttling peer traffic; forming new alliances; capping bandwidth usage.

The battle for the future of the Internet isn't being waged in Congress or at the FCC, but in the boardrooms of some of the world's most powerful companies. By the time lawmakers catch up, network neutrality will be like testimony at Microsoft's antitrust case - entertaining but irrelevant. Read More »

Bandwidth Caps are Anticompetitive

By Greg Richardson on 9/24/2008 5:57 AM

Comcast set off a firestorm by announcing a 250 GB bandwidth cap for its residential broadband customers. Om Malik over at Gigaom did a nice job of outlining how such caps would stifle innovation, which I tend to agree with. But, private providers are not bound by any law or obligation to promote innovation, at least not that I'm aware of. In fact, I tend to view placing bandwidth caps on a service - at least in situations where these caps are disclosed to the consumer, as well within any provider's right - even if I don't like it.

The bigger problem, in my view, is how bandwidth caps can have the effect of favoring these providers' own content and services, while disadvantaging similar content and services from other providers.

Civitium Analysis of Wireless Philadelphia Developments

By Greg Richardson on 5/19/2008 1:59 PM

On May 13, EarthLink Corporation issued a press release stating that it would discontinue its municipal Wi-Fi operations in Philadelphia. Due in part to Civitium’s past affiliation with the project, and our status as an advisor for public communications projects, we have received numerous inquiries from clients, partners and the press since last week. This memo seeks to provide our perspective on the factors that led to the breakup of the Philadelphia-EarthLink partnership and how these developments may be used to inform decision-making for cities involved in similar initiatives.

On the Issue of Free

By Greg Richardson on 5/10/2008 2:02 PM

This is a post that I’ve wanted to write for a while. With the market correction in municipal Wi-Fi, the exiting stage left of EarthLink, and the recent announcement by Cablevision, my random thoughts and observations about the issue of free vs. paid finally took shape. So, here goes.

On the Issue of Anchor Tenancy

By Greg Richardson on 11/18/2007 2:27 PM

Anchor tenancy has long been part of the dialog in municipal wireless. Basically, the term anchor tenancy has been used to describe one form of revenue assurance that is made by local government to a private-sector partner who commits to deploy a wireless network in a city. As the pullback of private investment in municipal Wi-Fi networks has played out this year, anchor tenancy has moved onto center-stage. But despite all the attention it has received, there has been little thoughtful analysis to look at whether and when it’s appropriate, what level of commitment should be required, and at what point does an anchor tenancy commitment go overboard