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San Francisco Passes Ordinance: Tenants Have ISP Choice At Last

San Francisco multi-occupancy building tenants will no longer be stuck with the Internet Service Provider most friendly with the landlord. On December 13th, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an ordinance to ensure that competing ISPs have reasonable access to buildings to offer competing services and give tenants a choice.

Ensuring Choice In Apartments, Condos, Businesses

Earlier this month, Mark Farrell from the city’s Board of Supervisors spoke with Christopher about his proposed legislation during episode #231 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. He described how city leaders began digging into ways to improve local connectivity and uncovered a problem that was much larger than they had anticipated. While federal law prohibits property owners from forcing tenants to sign up with one particular provider, many have effectively done so by preventing competing providers from installing wiring or antennas in or on their buildings. In exchange for limiting access to the competition, building owners and landlords take kickbacks from the ISP willing to make the best offer.

The new ordinance makes such agreements between building owners or landlords and ISPs fruitless because they can no longer block competing providers from their buildings. Webpass, a fixed wireless provider focusing on serving multi-dwelling unit (MDU) tenants, has been trying to get a foothold in the city but the ordinance has proven to be a difficult barrier. A local providers, Monkeybrains, raised the capital through crowdfunding to begin a fixed wireless service, but without the ordinance their reach is limited.

New Choices For Tens Of Thousands

In an urban setting like San Francisco, eliminating the ability for landlords and ISPs to lock tenants into a take-it-or-leave-it scenario will create choice for a huge swath of people:

Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 231

This is the transcript for episode 231 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. Mark Farrell of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors explains a proposed ordinance to improve Internet access for residents of apartment buildings. Listen to this episode here.

Mark Farrell: The MDU access policy is truly part of a broader scope here in San Francisco of work around Internet connectivity and Internet access.

Lisa Gonzalez: Welcome to episode 231 of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast from the Institute For Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez. Residents of apartment building or other types of multi-dwelling units don't always have their choice of Internet service provider, even if they're two or three companies competing in their neighborhood. Owners of the buildings they live in have been known to restrict access to the buildings to one provider. As a result, tenants who want Internet access have no practical choice at all. In episode 231, Mark Farrell joins Christopher. Mark is from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and has introduced legislation that would create an ordinance to allow competing ISPs access to multi-dwelling units. Mark explains the ordinance and why the city needs to implement it. He also describes how this policy is only one part of the city's greater effort to improve connectivity for all its residents. Now here's Chris talking with Mark Farrell, supervisor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors about a new proposal to remove restrictions of subscriber choice for people who live in multi-dwelling units.

Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the Community Broadband Bits Podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell. Today I'm speaking with Supervisor Mark Farrell of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Welcome to the show.

Mark Farrell: Thanks for having me.

Christopher Mitchell: I think I'd like to jump right in and just ask, you're proposing a law that deals with condo and apartment buildings. What would your law fix?

San Francisco Proposal For Tenant ISP Choice - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 231

Cities across America are implementing policies that create friendly environments for Internet Service Providers in order to encourage competition. In San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors is now considering legislation that will create choice for residents or businesses in multi-welling units, or MDUs. In episode 231, Mark Farrell, a member of the Board of Supervisors, joins us to discuss the proposal.

City leaders have worked in various ways to chip away at the digital divide and have discovered that a number of MDU building owners do not allow more than one ISP access to their buildings. As a result, residents have no option but to subscribe to the ISP of the owner’s choice, or have no service at all. The proposed ordinance will put an end to that practice by ensuring that building owners do not deny tenants choice and do not deny ISPs access to their buildings.

In this interview, Mark discusses the need for the ordinance and what city leaders hope to achieve with this new policy. When they investigated the issue, they realized that it impacted a significant number of stakeholders. Mark acknowledges the care of the city’s approach in encouraging competition, supporting responsible entrants, and doing so in a community with a range of old and new structures. The city is eager to improve their connectivity and this policy is one step in a larger plan.

This show is 18 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Admiral Bob for the music. The song is Turbo Tornado (c) copyright 2016 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Ft: Blue Wave Theory.

San Francisco Proposal Aims At Giving Multi-Tenants Access Choice Of ISPs

If San Francisco Board of Supervisor Mark Farrell gets his way, tenants in multiple-occupancy buildings will have a greater opportunity to choose their Internet Service Providers. 

In October, Farrell introduced a proposed ordinance that would require owners of multi-tenant residential and commercial properties to give building access to all state-licensed ISPs. 

Choice Effectively Denied 

Farrell’s proposal comes amidst reports of tenants denied access to ISPs of their choice.

According to a legislative digest of the proposed ordinance, property owners are not legally allowed to force tenants to sign up with one provider, but by limiting access their building to install fiber or antennas, they prevent their renters from choosing the provider they want:

"[M]any occupants of residential and commercial multiple occupancy buildings are unable to choose between service providers because their buildings property owners allow only one provider to install the facilities and equipment necessary to provide services to occupants..."

The San Francisco Chronicle reports: 

“The reality in San Francisco is that tens of thousands of residents have been denied access to different Internet service providers,” Farrell said. “I fundamentally believe competition is a good thing that will ultimately drive prices down and improve Internet access across all of San Francisco.”  

Charles Barr, founder of up and coming fixed wireless provider Webpass, said owners block their access to approximately 400 large apartment buildings in the city. Google Fiber recently acquired Webpass.

The Proposed Ordinance  

Farrell’s proposed ordinance would guarantee:

Webpass and Its Fixed Wireless Seek Fix for Landlord Abuses - Community Broadband Bits Episode 197

San Francisco is one of the rare cities that has multiple high quality ISPs competing for market share, though the vast majority of people still seem to be stuck choosing only between Comcast and AT&T. This week, we talk to a rising ISP, Webpass, about their success and challenges in expanding their model. Charles Barr is the President of Webpass and Lauren Saine is a policy advisor - both join us for episode 197 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. 

We discuss the Webpass model, which uses fixed wireless and fiber to serve high density apartment buildings where they are allowed in by the landlord. Unfortunately, they have been locked out of many of these buildings and are looking to the city of San Francisco to adopt better policies to ensure a single provider like AT&T cannot monopolize the building. Though the FCC has made exclusive arrangement unenforceable, the big providers are still finding ways to lock out competition. We also talk a little about the role of fiber and fixed wireless technologies, chokepoints more generally, and why Webpass is so sure it could succeed if residents were all able to to choose the ISP they wanted. 

This show is 27 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Kathleen Martin for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Player vs. Player."

Open Access Engineering Options - Community Broadband Bits Podcast 172

The holy grail of Internet access for many of us continues to be a situation in which multiple providers can compete on a level playing field, which should lower costs to subscribers and encourage innovation. Often called open access, this may involve a municipality building a fiber optic network and making it available on a wholesale level - a model that has been tried to various degrees of success. 

This week, we talk with Tim Pozar, a long time Internet entrepreneur and community network enthusiast, about why he supports that model and his ideal method of engineering such a network. We talk about different possibilities for how to design the network and trade-offs involved with those choices. Tim has worked for many years to encourage this model in San Francisco, which already has some of the locally rooted ISPs that we would hope would ultimately thrive if the City had that type of network available. 

This show is 30 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to bkfm-b-side for the music, licensed using Creative Commons. The song is "Raise Your Hands."

Sonic.net Lights Up In Brentwood CA

Last summer the community of Brentwood began working with Sonic.net in a plan to use publicly owned conduit for a privately owned fiber network. Earlier this month, the partners celebrated completion of part of that network and officially lit-up the first residential neighborhood served by Sonic.net's fiber gigabit service.

The Mercury News reports that residents are much happier with the new Internet service provider than they were with incumbents Comcast and AT&T:

"I had no lag, no buffering, no waiting -- it almost feels like the Internet's waiting on you, rather than you waiting for the Internet," said Brentwood resident Matt Gamblin, who was one of the first residents to sign up for the service. "The hardest part about the process was canceling my old Internet."

Brentwood began installing conduit as a regular practice in 1999; the community adopted the policy as a local ordinance, requiring new developers to install it in all new construction. The city has experienced significant growth and the conduit has grown to over 150 miles, reaching over 8,000 homes and a large segment of Brentwood's commercial property. As a result, they have incrementally developed an extensive network of fiber ready conduit. 

As part of their agreement with Sonic.net, Brentwood will save an estimated $15,000 per year in connectivity fees because the ISP will provide gigabit service at no charge for City Hall. Sonic.net will fill in gaps in the conduit where they interfere with network routes. In school jurisdictions where 30 percent or more of households subscribe, public schools will also get free Internet access. (We have grave concerns about the impact of only extending high quality Internet access to schools where households are better able to subscribe to Internet access at any price point.)

City officials hope to draw more of San Francisco's high tech workforce to town. Over the past two decades of population growth, the city has prospered but community leaders want to diversify:

San Francisco Looks to Expand Muni Fiber and Wi-Fi

San Francisco has long been considered a modern, glittering, tech capital. For years its leaders have struggled with ensuring residents and businesses actually had next-generation Internet access as AT&T and Comcast only provide the same basic services that are available in most cities. In a recent Backchannel article, Susan Crawford discusses how the City by the Bay is taking steps to develop its vision, its long-term plan, and hopefully a network that will improve connectivity in a city of over 800,000 8.5 million.

San Francisco has developed an Information and Communication Technology Plan, which still needs approval from the City Board of Supervisors. According to the article, the plan calls on the city to take an incremental approach on its path to improved connectivity. They plan to use a similar method as Santa Monica by connecting municipal facilities - many of which are already connected via fiber - and then shedding expensive leased circuits. By eliminating that expense, the city will cut $1.3 million for Internet access and networking services from its connectivity costs.

Last year the City also put dig once policies in place, a decision other communities attribute as one of the keys to a cost-effective deployment. Like Santa Monica, the City currently leases dark fiber to ISPs. They plan to entice more ISPs who want to bring broadband to residents and businesses by expanding that practice. San Francisco plans to streamline the process and work with developers on strategically linking new developments to Internet hubs with dark fiber.

As Crawford notes, the City has created free Wi-Fi in select areas of town with plans to serve public housing and commercial corridors. Miquel Gamiño, San Francisco's CIO, told Crawford they hope to make Wi-Fi available on a larger scale:

Community Broadband Media Roundup - October 24

On this week’s community broadband media roundup, we have more reverberations from Next Century Cities, a forward-thinking coalition of cities that promises real progress in establishing or restoring local authority for broadband networks. For the inside scoop on the launch, we suggest taking a look at Ann L. Kim’s Friday Q&A with Deb Socia, the executive director of the organization. 

Here’s an excerpt: 

Q: So when you say you work with cities that are either looking to get next generation broadband or already have it, what does that entail?

A: …We are working with elected officials and also employees, like CIOs and city managers and so forth, and the goal is to really help them figure out their pathway. This is pretty hard work and we recognize that there’s always a local context and so we don’t advocate any one way to do this work, but we help cities think about it.

So [are] you gonna work with an incumbent provider, are you gonna build your own, are you gonna work with a private non-profit? How are you gonna make it happen? What are the alternatives for you? And how can we best support you?

Multichannel’s Jeff Baumgartner covered the launch in Santa Monica as well. The bipartisan coalition offers members collaboration opportunities and support for those communities that face incumbent pressure when they announce plans to move forward with publicly-owned broadband programs. According to China Topix’s David Curry, neither Comcast nor Time Warner Cable have made announcements about gig networks, “with Time Warner Cable even go as far as saying "customers don't want 1Gbps Internet speeds", a statement ridiculed on the Web.”  

Rest assured, there will be much more coverage on this organization’s work in the weeks to come. 

San Francisco's Market Street Now Offering Free Wi-Fi

San Francisco now offers free Wi-Fi along Market Street. The city of approximately 825,000 joins a growing number of local municipalities that provide the service in select parts of town or in the entire city limits. The San Francisco Chronicle reports private companies donated hardware and a gigabit of bandwidth. The final cost was $500,000 to deploy the service, which extends approximately three miles.

According to Govenment Technology, the City Department of Technology developed the system and installed the equipment on traffic lights and other city-owned property. After several attempts to partner with private sector providers failed, city leaders decided it was time to act on their own:

"It was simpler, faster, better to do it on our own," said San Francisco CIO Marc Touitou in a release. "The quality is higher, with the technical design by the Department of Technology. We wanted high capacity. ... We wanted it to be cool -- no strings attached, no ads."

On December 10th, Mayor Bloomberg announced that the City of New York would soon provide free Wi-Fi in Harlem. We have also reported on many of the other communities that offer free municipal Wi-Fi including: Ponca City, OklahomaAztec, New Mexico; and San Jose, California

San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee noted the free service is only the beginning of larger plans to improve connectivity. From the city news release: