July 24, 2008

The WiFi Guy
Seamlessly connecting downtown Nashua
By Susan Ware Flower news@hippopress.com

Although he’s the IT director for the City of Nashua, when John Barker worked on the city’s new downtown free WiFi project, he did it as a volunteer. It was the first such project Barker has worked on. The free Nashua WiFi district, called the Downtown Amenity Network, will run from Southern New Hampshire Medical Center north to Library Hill, and up two blocks on each side of Main Street. The project was made possible with support from Hampshire First Bank, Fairpoint Communications, ActiveEdge, Aboundi, the City of Nashua and the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce.

Q: Offering free WiFi downtown Nashua is an exciting thing. What kind of feedback have you been getting?
The feedback has been good. ... The only real issue is the misunderstanding that this is a city project, and that eventually the entire city will get free WiFi. It isn’t and they won’t.

It does feel like a city project, and since you are involved, people might assume that.
Yes, I’m involved, but only as a volunteer. When I first started working for the city, the Chamber was discussing the idea of free WiFi for Main Street, so I asked former mayor Bernie Streeter if I could get involved on a volunteer basis. I’ve put in more than 100 man-hours on the project, but it is a Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce initiative.

So the city offers no support?
No, the City of Nashua provided $10,000 in funding, which was from a Community Development Grant. Ongoing support and maintenance of the WiFi district is the responsibility of the Chamber of Commerce. I will continue to volunteer on the project and help any way I can.

This is a big project. Is it sustainable?
Yes. We had decided not to do it until we had the funds to support it for three years.

What did the free WiFi service cost, including installation and maintenance?
Approximately $40,000. Original RFPs brought in bids for more than $100,000, so we had to go back to the drawing board.

How did you get the cost down?
We got lucky. A West Coast Company called Meraki provided low-cost yet state-of-the-art devices so that we could create a 10- to 12-point backhaul. This means that as a user, you are never more than one hop to the Internet. Other cities have used only a couple of points, like Portsmouth, and then link the network with nodes, which doesn’t offer seamless connection. In Nashua, you can walk the entire length of the network watching a YouTube video and it will never cut out on you.

How difficult was it to wire up the points?
Initially, very difficult. We were finding ourselves in the third sub-basements of these old buildings looking at an extensive perimeter wiring project. We realized we did not have the funds for this and had to think of another way. That was when Aboundi, a Nashua-based company, stepped forward with a solution. They offered affordable, enterprise-quality equipment that took care of the expensive, long wiring issue.

Will Nashua’s WiFi district serve as a model for other cities?
It may. We looked at what other cities have unsuccessfully tried as a business model of what not to do. One common denominator is that cities establish a free WiFi district and hope that the money will come to sustain it. We have the funds in the bank. Another model is for free WiFi for citizens, but businesses pay. Philadelphia tried it and it failed.

Have downtown businesses cut their Ethernet cords and jumped on this free WiFi?
I hope not; it would be a stupid thing to do. Certainly a business can take advantage of it, but I don’t think a reliable business would. Why would they want to share bandwidth? I had a lawyer call me and ask if he could run his entire legal practice off of the free WiFi. I think that would be disastrous for him.

Is the WiFi network unreliable?
No, it’s just that it isn’t meant for enterprise. If a business network goes down, there is a sense of urgency to get it repaired. If the free WiFi in a café goes down, it isn’t always a priority to bring it back up in the quickest amount of time because it isn’t critical.

Is service free to...anyone who can access it?
Yes, but it is really designed for use by patrons and visitors of downtown. ... [I]n order to establish your log-in and password, you need to pick up a brochure from one of the businesses on Main Street who have the WiFi logo on their door. It was set up this way so that people will find out what’s downtown and maybe walk into a business they had never been to before.