New Orleans to get free city-wide WiFi
By Evan Blass 
posted Nov 29th 2005 5:35PM
posted Nov 29th 2005 5:35PM
New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin has announced an unprecedented project wherein the entire city will be blanketed by free WiFi within a year. Due to the almost complete devastation of the city's infrastructure, the free Internet access is one attempt to turn the city's stagnant economy into one of growth and independence. Like in most large-scale networks, the New Orleans routers will be placed on top of street lights and provide citizens and businesses with 512 kbps download speeds until the city's state of emergency has been lifted. In accordance with state laws that restrict government-owned Internet providers, speeds will drop to a paltry 128 kbps once the city has returned to some level of normalcy.
Not bad, I wouldn't mind free city-wide wifi. Maybe this will encourage growth.
[sarcasm]This is a great idea[/sarcasm]
Isn't it great to know that the grammar police is always around to make the internet a better place.
Whats with the state-laws restricting bandwidth? did the ISP's lobbyists do this?
Okay let me get this straight. Currently large sections of New Orleans still don't have power, many still don't have water and phone. Anything outside of downtown New Orleans is still struggling to get reliable trash pickup. The people in most of New Orleans (orleans parish) have lost their computers in the storm. So .... who exactly is going to be connected to this network? Is it going to stretch into Algiers and Metarie?
Get the damn street lights working first, then start talking about WiFi.
Is this what the money I donated is going towards?
If they are gonna go to all that trouble to install wifi, why cripple the speed like that? BTW, why did you choose that pic for this story? NO is no longer underwater...
Wow! the people who lost there homes, families, and jobs will be so excited to hear that now they can have wifi.
Thanks to VOIP, this could help ease any continued damage to the telephone infrastructure. Although I'm not sure why the mayor sees fit to make this a priority, this is the one place in the country where it makes sense.
Now all those stolen laptops can be used properly...
I was pretty surprised to learn of this today. As a NOLA resident, I would have expected to know about this far in advance. Sounds like a good thing to me, although I don't suspect this will mean too much for a couple years.
This major is a joke. As long as you’re mopping the crap up in New Orleans, you might as well mop this guy's ass up. Oh wait I forgot this IS New Orleans. The constituency here is just as dumb as Washington D.C. where they have a crack addict for a mayor.
They need to invest in learning how to follow disaster plans that they have already tabletopped. Idiots.
I don't see why everyone thinks this is such a stupid idea. It's a way for them to effectively recover their economy. It opens up ways for businesses, primarily small business owners and people who ran their own businesses a way to get back into operation. It also allows people to expand beyond what might have been previously available.
Also the system was donated by three seperate tech companies. If it's a viable way to help refresh and update their economic structure and it was free, what's the problem?
for the sake of clarification...the crack addict politician in DC is no longer mayor. he is a city councilman. and besides, "the bitch set [him] up". makes all the difference in the world when you think abou it.
"I need 512 kbps, man..."
Instead of blowing money on city-wide wifi, they should consider creating jobs (clean-up, construction) with the money and attempt to help people restore their lives. Sure free wifi rocks.. but not when you have no computer, no house, no job, etc. and only a disease-riden, body littered, pathetic hospitals and social services.
As a Tulane student who owns a k-jam, all I can say is FU*K YEAH!
people dont have homes and they are providing internet? that is funny.
if you wish to get free gmail... visit my site and use the contact link to send me an email... i will respond promptly... i have plenty email invitations to give away....
I can see the use for this tho. This doesnt need to be a priority but it could help. Like stated before VoIP is ideal for this situation especilaly if you have to communicate to family who might be worried about u. This also creats jobs for people. People who build the infrastructur and then those who maintain it. Also this can help schooling also. Many people just left including teachers and arent comming back this is a good way to fast track some of the education that was lost. And hey its just kool in general but like i said before does not needto be a main thing on the to-do list
#17, read #14's post.
I think it is something that can definitely taken advantage of by businesses. Whether it should be a priority getting it off the ground is the question to me.
From the original article:
"Most of the equipment was donated by three companies: Intel Corp., Tropos Networks and Pronto Networks. "
Who's N.O. to turn down free equipment? Yea, it'll cost some money to operate, but I imagine the major cost is in the hardware infrastructure.
People haven't returned in numbers because the jobs aren't there. Free internet and access to VOIP will certainly help businesses down there get back on their feet and bring jobs back.
And you guessed it - bring the people home to fill the jobs.
Of course, work still needs to be done for electricity, water, sewer, trash, etc. But I don't think haivng free WiFi installed isn't going to be a major hinderance to getting the other public services online (pun intended).
Free WiFi won't be much of a stimulus if it's capped at 128kbps. This is a boondoggle to make the mayor feel like he's running a Real City.
(Oh, and the crackhead mayor of DC--you mean Marion Barry, right? True, he's not mayor any more; but that's not because of the drug charges: he was reelected *after* he got out of prison.)
Great, now all the poor ass black (and white) people who managed not to get flooded out and probably don't have computers will have another way to be excluded from everything.
This is at least good for businesses though.
Not to turn tech political, but the way Bush is handling this, they'll be at 512 kbps for a while.
thats a bit more stupid than the Hono electronic candle.
As someone who just happens to live in New Orleans it simply amazes me how stupid so many of you are BUT how bold you are about sharing your opinions about something you know nothing about.
The equipment was donated to the city and they (frankly) didn't know what to do with it... Do they let citizens use it free? Do they charge a token amount? Do they let business owners use it free?
They made the right choice. Let everyone use it for free. This is probably the best single thing that has happened for the the business community in New Orleans in the last month.
And you clueless morons dismiss it.
Please, if you don't know WTF you are talking about, just shut the hell up.
Yes, thousands of computers got flooded... What apprears to be lost on all the know-it-alls is that people did the most remarkable thing when they lost their computers -- THEY BOUGHT NEW ONES. Shocking I know.
Everyone (except one) I know who lost a desktop replaced it with a laptop. New Orleans right now today probably has the highest laptop ownership per capita of any city in the world.
Now you may continue with your unbrideled display of ignorace and hatred.
Oh, one more thing. Why the fu** does this story feature a picture of flooding in New Orleans!? The city hasn't been underwater for quite sometime. The Big Easy is coming back to life, slowly but surely. This is one small step.
Sounds good on paper, Nagin. But it's taken over 1+ years to get anything acceptable out of the Tropos wi-fi in Chaska, MN. And there's more than just hardware costs. Seriously, they've been tweaking this thing forever and some users (me included) could not get download speed above dialup much less an always-on connection. One of the recommended solutions was to mount some sort of antenna out of my home office window. You betcha.
Im thinking of moving there just for the free wifi! (No just kidding, there is free wifi just about any city you go to now.)
I know government cant provide high speed, free wifi due to that law, but is there anything against a citizen doing it? A wealthy guy could just donate great wifi to some area. I would do that, just to screw all the corporations. Buy a few homes around the city, and pipe a massive signal out off.
To the New Orleans native, you're the idiot. You assume that it doesn't cost you a single penny to maintain a city-wide, FREE WiFi? How about the electricity costs needed to send radio waves all over the city?
That money can be spent on something better.... let's say, to educate people to use the school buses that was parked on the parking lot before the hurricane struck.
Interesting comments. As the person responsible for building the network, it is fun to see all the comments from the proverbial peanut gallery. I totally understand some of the thoughts from the outside world. Let me give some thoughts... Understand that the Mayor and all of the City are fighting this battle on many fronts. Today alone the Mayor went from meetings with Feds, to the tourism center announcement, to our WiFi announcement, to a tour of the recovered areas, to a Christmas Tree lighting, to a Town Hall meeting. Yes, New Orleans East, the 9th Ward and Lakeview have a long road in front of them and a lot of uncertainty. But the areas of the City where commerce (and some damn fine restaurants) have returned desperately need communications as a key element of the continued recovery. The CBD, French Quarter, Warehouse District, Uptown, Algiers, etc. were all largely unscathed and are in full-blown operation, have full power, gas, water, sewer, trash and other services. But businesses need communications and data to run. This gives them that. 512Kbps is not perfect, but it is great for people who have nothing. There are thousands of laptops in the City and people who need the connection. And all of this overlooks the MAIN purpose for the network we are building. That is to serve the needs of the City itself. We have Police, Fire, EMS, Safety and Permits and other City officials doing way more than their normal work load. Allowing them to access video in the field, file reports remotely, dispatch, etc. via this network is a tremendous force multiplier that we desperately need. Intel, Tropos and Pronto have donated hardware and engineers/expertise. Motorola has donated time from their engineers. And our guys have ramped up our skills and now deploy up to 15 nodes a day, all while still meeting our normal (if you can call building a 150 person Emergency Operations Center with computers, Internet and Voice over WiFi in 4 days normal) IT obligations. FEMA will pay for much of the network going forward (capital costs) as part of the permitting and inspecitons process and it will actually lower the cost of that project for all of us because we need fewer inspectors that way.
This is an exciting time and an exciting model for Muni WiFi. We do hope to have the law modified or overturned and be able to offer better service as the network builds out. But it is working great and we have over 200 registered users by the end of the first day today.
Thanks for reading, and everyone come to New Orleans for some good food and a good time. And enjoy the free WiFi. We tested Skype calls today, and it rocks. :-) See you all at Mardi Gras 2006.
Chris Drake
Mayor's Office of Technology
City of New Orleans
Typical New Orleans, more handouts instead of real solutions like clean up and infrastructure.
BTW free wi-fi isn't 'free', someone has to pay for it and if that where FEMA money or Red Cross donations are heading I say its time to remove Mayor Nagin now and handover the city to someone who isn't a complete idiot.
This is to the person claiming to be:
Chris Drake
Mayor's Office of Technology
City of New Orleans
Chris, if you are "the man" in charge of putting this together can you please deliver this message from me to Mayor Nagin and those at FEMA who so generously have given our money to help you build free wi-fi for your city.
F-U
I want my donations back. This isn't part of helping NO get back on their feet, what the hell man! You have citizens of those areas hit hardest living in my town who need help not god damn wifi, so tell those you report to get a damn clue and use the money WE gave you to help the people rebuild not UPGRADE the damn city. Let AT&T and SWBell work on the networks in the area, thats their business, why don't you work on setting up the vital emergency lines then tell Moto et al if they want to setup WiFi and charge businesses for their use fine, but don't use my damn tax money so you can make god damn skype calls for f-ing free.
Next hurricane you can forget monetary donations from me, I'll just donate my time, cloths and food because thats what people need right now, not VoIP.
You're missing the point. All that money you donated DID give people clothes and food. It's time to start moving forward again. With NO getting back together, this is the BEST time to introduce MuniWiFi. Chris says this is going to be in place so that emergency dispatch can connect better, etc., and also points out that this is paid for by FEMA. Which is a government orgainization. Did you donate to FEMA? If so...I bet your money helped a victim get back on their feet. Don't feel so bad for helping people out.
The hatred and intolerance in here is pathetic. They *are* uneducated by a system that failed them and a city populace that left in "white flight," taking the city's tax-base with it. If scared whites would stop running every time the crime rate goes up a little this wouldn't happen.
Wi-Fi should be use to communicate and heal some of the wounds in that community that keeps people segregated in 2005.
Some quotes from, "New Orleans mayor gets an earful" (Nov. 29, 2005, at: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/11/29/neworleans.townhall/index.html)
" 'I am in the cold,' said a woman who identified herself as the owner of a bed and breakfast. 'I can't cook. I can't do business. I can't take advantage of all the business people who are coming here.' "
"Before Katrina, Entergy New Orleans had 190,000 electrical power customers and 145,000 gas customers. The company filed for bankruptcy protection shortly after the hurricane hit. Power is now available to 115,000 of those customers and gas is available to 76,000, the utility said on its Web site."
"Residents also complained about a lack of debris and trash removal, inadequate or no response from police to calls, and price gouging by some landlords."
" 'There are still way too many areas in the city that are dark at night,' the mayor said."
" 'I'm still not totally convinced our police force is at the level of stabilization to handle' around-the-clock security, he [Mayor Nagin] said."
/end
For Christ's sake, that article was written on the same day that the announcement of "Free WiFi" was made! What are your goddamn priorities here? Corporate interests, or the citizens in need? Or am I wasting my time by even asking that? It's bloody ridiculous that the best that the Mayor's Office can manage at this point, is to provide free internet access for businesses, while there are still people who are struggling to survive. It breaks my heart that the gap between the "Haves" and the "Have Nots" is so wide, that they will cater to the extraneous luxeries (wireless internet) of the few, before tending to the still-outstanding necessities (reliable citywide sanitation, potable water, electricity, natural gas, and security) of the many.
I am honestly dumbfounded as to how that municipal representative from the 'Mayor's Office of Technology' can feel as though he's performed some kind of miracle for the city. I'm in total agreement with #33. Fu¢k You! Next time, (and given the geography of the reigon, there WILL be a next time), you bastards won't be getting a red cent out of my pocket until you can demonstrate that you can put it to appropriate use, in a timely fashion, for those most in need.
- Ptrix
"Thanks for reading, and everyone come to New Orleans for some good food and a good time. And enjoy the free WiFi. We tested Skype calls today, and it rocks. :-) See you all at Mardi Gras 2006."
Yeah, sure. I'll be there, as long as you let me bring the Marines with me for security.
Beej, you bet your rear I 'donate' to FEMA, its called a 1040 and I 'donate' heavily each year.
Look, I just saw a news report on the levees in New Orleans, the report said they are being rebuilt to withstand a category 3 hurricane, which is EXACTLY where they were before Katrina. The report claims that they can be made to withstand heavier winds and storms, but that would take FEDERAL MONEY.
Hmmm, sounds like the same old crap in New Orleans:
Engineers: "You should update the levees to withstand heavier storms"
City of NO: "No thanks, we like free WiFi"
Again, don't count on money from me, my family or my company anytime in the future for ANY catastrophe that befalls New Orleans. I hope the free WiFi comes with rafts.
Note: If they don't boost the economy, the city will quickly go bankrupt. What do you think the people will think when all the businesses have left, and thanks to Bush: there isn't any money for the people in need. Spending a very little amount of money to put in a wireless network in the city will put a lot more into the economy than the money used.
Sean Foushee, you seem to be taking out your anger on the people of new orleans for no reason. Just because their mayor is doing stupid things doesn't mean that the people support his actions. I don't think the people really voted for the 'free wireless' ... i think they have bigger problems to worry about. So go ahead and blame the mayor but please keep giving to new orleans (there are ways you can do this that would prevent the govt from using the money towards free wifi.. for example : you could give to red cross). So please don't misplace your anger.
#21, #14. Wi-fi=instant economic development? Um, no. Not without electricity, re-build and/or repaired builderings, and people. The equipment may have been donated, but there are still labor costs to setup and maintain. There are the costs of the internet access itself, power costs, and hardware maintainance. It's not "free" to the city of New Orleans. Businesses have to have, say, roofs and some cleanup before wifi is going to be of any use. A few years down the road wifi could be useful when the city is undergoing rebuilding and people have computers/eletricity/homes/offices/etc. again.. but this is pre-emptive.. and considering the state of the city, it is certainly not something to spend a lot of effort on for months down the road until you take care of the more grumsome tasks of remodeling. Ideal to think that wifi will make NO a magical place, but it won't.. there's still billions needed in structural repairs and corpse identification. The mayor, etc. sure look idiotic right about now.
It probably does make sense if the city is building the network for its own use; if they actually need the data coverage, then it's probably cheaper to maintain the WiFi switches than to pay for somebody else's service.
And data coverage makes some sense, especially now: it lets a worker in the field get to their office systems to handle paperwork on the spot, instead of having to come back later (costing time and money). For example, a contractor rebuilding a house could get his permit faster, which means it's faster and cheaper to get NO rebooted.
that picture is incredible,
someone email me a highres version!
motech a t mac dot cm
My question is why rebuild anything. Its pretty clear that nature reclaimed parts of New Orleans. Wouldn't it be a whole lot cheaper to levy off JUST the historical stuff, and bulldoze the rest.
The people who lived in the low-lieing, government-subsidized housing 9th ward etc. are collecting their government checks from the government now just fine from Baton Rouge-Texas-Wherever. Besides, if you did'nt have the means to evacuate properly the first time, why the hell would you want to come back. I'd rather be poor on dry land, than poor on a piece of land that will be underwater again in a few years.
You people love to bitch just for the sake of bitching. Christ, just because they're providing free wifi, doesn't mean they've abandoned all other relief efforts. This is just one small step in the process of rebuilding, but sure as hell isn't freakin priority number one like you're all making it out to be. It's not like all of a sudden a bunch of wifi boxes showed up on their doorsteps and everybody stopped what they were doing to install them. With more and more communities looking into providing city wide wifi access, what better time to install it than when you've gotta rebuild the whole damn city.
And how would this not make the rebuilding effort easier anyways? Either way, networking the city is going to be a priority to get buisinesses up and running and further simplify other relief efforts. It'd take even more time and money to make sure everyone has a wired connection early in the process for the whole city.
Does everyone understand that EVDO is running in New Orleans? This is another crazy Municipal wireless waste of money.
Does everyone understand that EVDO is running in New Orleans? This is another crazy Municipal wireless waste of money.
WiFi does not care about black people.
-Steve "Kanye" Ballmer
So when these companies offered these donations Nagin should have just refused ?
As 'Viney' said pretty well already, if this effort ISN'T in fact taking away from the other efforts in a significant fashion then why is it bad ?
I too am doubtful that this will have a GIGANTIC effect on NO's recovery, but given that much (though obivously not all) of it is being DONATED by larger corporations I doubt it will significantly hurt the larger effort.
But at the same time I certainly agree with those generous (but aparently disgruntled) souls posting here who stress the need to prioritize. Peoples food/clothes/shelter are definitely more important than the ability to blog. No argument there. But even if New Orleans hadn't been devastated, there would be people around the world and even strewn about the US who (for whatever reason(s)) are in just as much need as the peeps in NO are now. But I have never noticed people mention THAT fact whenever Engadget has reported a city getting free wifi before...at least not with nearly as much venom. Any other time when a city has rolled out free wifi it meant money (probably even tax money) went to web surfing instead of to needy people...the fact that those people aren't splashed on the news for hours every day for weeks on end doesn't change that.
Bah...if anything this allocation of resources is as I said before probably not any worse on a humanitarian level than any other citywide roll out, and in this case it *might* ultimately have more of a benevolent effect than the others...
And of couse, all of the above is IMHO...
EVDO is $80/month and, in our tests, not very fast or reliable in much of the City right now. We did the numbers on the financials for what it will cost to build/operate the network. By the time you put EVDO cards in 400 police cars, 200 fire vehicles, 40 EMS, and about 1,000 inspectors laptops, we pay for the network VERY quickly. Plus citizens get to use it, and lots of people who cannot necessarily afford $80/month. By serving the New Orleans Library network alone we are justifying much of the network. None of the libraries have wired Internet back yet and ask them if they want to run on EVDO. We just got them back online - a key component to getting schools back open. No, I think you need a better argument than "EVDO is running in New Orleans"...
Chris Drake
Mayor's Office of Technology
City of New Orleans
Chris:
Your pricing assumptions are way off. Fed, State, and local Govt get special GSA pricing. EVDO offers MOBILITY, and is very reliable. Philly Police is using EVDO instead of the Muni WiFi network. I wonder why???
Speaking as someone from Philly, I can asssure you, EV-DO is on the way out. The Philly police are paying $70 a month. The newly announced Earthlink wi-fi system to be rolled out in the coming year is expected to cost $10 a month. EVDO is Expensive.
Philadelphia is abandoning EVDO as it has reliability problems and is more expensive. The city government anticipates savings of about $2 million a year.
Philly does not HAVE a muni wifi network yet is the reason they use EVDO. They just awareded the RFP for muni wifi, have not even really started contract negotiations with the vendor. EVDO is not a bad option, just expensive (you think I don't know what GSA pricing is? not as good as you think) and not as reliable in an event. Police don't get priority (assuming the network stays up - it did not here), the network gets crowded, and police have no control. With a muni wifi system, you pay fixed cost, not variable/recurring (better financing/grants) and you can prioritize the net for public safety or even kick everyone else off if necessary. Plus wifi mesh is much more resilient and easy to get back up and running. Believe me. I have done it. The Mayor was talking to the President on a VoIP call right after the storm for a reason. I wonder why???
Its funny to me how no one seems to see how the handleing of Hurricane relief is one of the best examples of how bloated and out of control our goverment has become...this is just another example...the fact remains that a good portion of new orleans is without essentials and it just doesn't make any sense to use any money for something that should not be the goverments responsability in the first place...when they donated the equipment someone should of said thank you but instead could you just give us money...cause you know you can't build levies out of cisco routers....hell if there is such a bussiness demand like you all seem to think there is then that means there are people willing to pay good money for reliable internet access right now not the least of which the goverment of NO...if that the case then why hasn't someone moved in and provided that service at a cost that the consumer is willing to pay? it must be some big bussiness conspirisy not to make any money
#52 Jeff - You are absolutely clueless. How can you dismiss the role any type of buisiness, big or small, plays in a community. If there's no buisiness then there's absolutely no reason to live there in the first place. Without jobs or an economy why would people even bother rebuilding when they could just as easily go elsewhere? What's a repaired levee going to do for a city with no one living in it. I'm not trying to dismiss the need for the levees and other basic utilities that need repair, but you have to give these people a reason to stay, and the only way to do that is to not only repair the obvious essentials, but also provide services that these people could just as easily get if they packed up and moved somewhere else. And since most have nothing anyways, a delicate balance is essential if NO ever plans to get back up on it's feet again. You people are ignoring the obvious econonomical and educational necessities that this is serving. This is not about trying to get internet into the homes of residents as soon as possible. It's about providing the city with a functional, reliable network that it needs to further ease the efforts of all other phases of the relief process.
Chris:
I wish you the best of luck building and running your MESH WiFi network. As a Cell Carrier employee for 14 years I can tell you that running a wireless network is more than adding AP's on light poles. We have successfully secured almost every public safety award in my market with departments activating CDMA 1X or EVDO. The Police love the MOBILITY that the CDMA COVERAGE gives them and the nice speed as well. Capacity has not been an issue since the technology is very efficient. I'm not sure why you continue to think that the CDMA Data networks are un-reliable. It is not the case in my major market. Yes, we charge recurring costs, but you have very little up front costs since most of the PCMCIA cards are free. You should re-look your GSA schedule, as someone who sells this solution you are still mis-quoting the costs which causes me to question your integrity. I hope your City rebuilds itself, but I'm concerned that you have been drinking the cool-aid from the muniwireless groups out there that don't know anything about building and running a business or a network.
Sorry, I meant #53, NOT Chris Drake #52 (who obviously knows what the hell he's talking about).
Chris I tell you what. I am an ex-New Orleans resident. I think its great that you have the logistics to put together and maintain a city wide WI-FI network. Since you have that much capability, might I suggest a few other things:
* Residents of the city are getting billed by their municipalities for services that aren't being provided. I know, I have 15 of them in my house in Atlanta and I see their bills arriving all the time.
* Residents of New Orleans East off of Read road and others near Bullard would like to get back into their homes and start cleaning up and living there but they can't because there is still no power and questionable water.
* Rent prices within the city are skyrocketing due to price gouging. You talk about defeating the municipality speed limit, but I think that people actually being able to live in the city should probably take more of your legal bandwidth.
* If you have power and manpower to install a WiFi network, then you have power and manpower to get the power grid actually running.
* You talk about getting city-wide WiFi for businesses. That's great. I called city hall because I was trying to bring a business back into the city and I'm having issues getting a business license.
No you tell ME where the cities priorities are? The very fact that you have time to even plan this out when there are areas of need that people could be assigned to is insulting. Please be in Atlanta on the 6th (I believe that's when the town hall meeting is) and I'll discuss these issues with you and more. New Orleans is NOT just downtown, the french quarter and the garden district.
Gregory Pierce
A pissed off ex-New Orleanian.
Greg, You make some really great points, but I don't see why you and everyone else can't seem to grasp the importance of setting up this network. The scope of this rebuilding process is enormous and the first thing that must be established before anything else is communication between all parties.
This is far from being a waste of time and money. It makes every aspect of the rebuilding phase that much easier by increasing communication, coordination and organization between not just residents of the city, but every person, business and organization involved in rebuilding the city. Nearly every issue that you pointed out can be solved faster and more efficiently, saving time, labor and money, simply by maintaining a reliable network throughout the city. It's the whole reason we're so dependent on networking as a society. It's not just fancy gadgets and gimmics.
Important to WHO is what I would question. I think if you ask the people outside the city unable to return home because of the state of the city, I think you will find that it is of trivial importance. Last time I was in New Orleans, cellular communications were just fine. There wasn't a problem with people being able to communicate - especially over the GSM network (and I'm sure other networks were fine as well).
The WiFi network is a tool - it will do nothing to increase coordination and organization. Those are elements of leadership, planning, and action - not technology, especially considering you have capable services as it stands. If you have available personnel to handle the logistics of this project - tell me why the city is constantly unable to provide logistics for other projects in the city that should matter:
* Getting trailers hooked up
* Getting contractors organized and doing the RIGHT job
* Making sure that New Orleans contractors get paid for their jobs
* Getting the power grid that the WiFi network will require WORKING before sitting equipment on top of it.
The last one is of an even more curious nature, because it makes an assumption that you can proceed today. I'm not sure how you're going to proceed today when huge swaths of the city are without power... unless your plans simply don't include those sections of the city. So if this is such a necessary and present need - how are you going to provide it to the entire city... when you can't even power it in the entire city?
Gregory
I hear what you are saying and appreciate it. Unfortunately we can't do everything. The City is not an all-encompassing entity. Entergy runs the power grid and only they can fix it. And they have no paying customers right now (well, very few...). I am not sure what bills anyone is getting from the City. Taxes and sanitation are about it that are actually collected by the city. Sanitation I can tell you is running at or better than pre-K levels in repopulated areas of the city. New Orleans East (Read Road, etc.) is a difficult situation. It took a very hard hit. Sewer and water stations were completely submerged. They remained manned by some people who literally risked their lives to keep them running. The sewer and water are being returned to the East as fast as possible. We are putting 6 generators in pump station number 5 this week in fact. Unfortunately things like FEMA, insurance and flood plains have more to do with people coming back to that area... There are certainly areas where real estate prices are up. But I just went and inquired about commercial "Class A" property on Poydras Street and it is going at or slightly below pre-K levels. Market conditions (little supply, high demand) will dictate those prices and unfair gouging will be prosecuted. And the prices will naturally come down and the initial crush of responders subsides. On the wifi power vs grid power thing, unfortunately we are just IT guys and can only do low voltage stuff like wifi. We rely on Entergy just like everyone else to light the grid. But we do work closely with them to get them the information they need to do their job. They have a permanent spot in our Emergency Operations Center and use our IT resources. Permitting and licensing and starting a new business is available online and I encourage you to do as much as you can at our web site http://www.cityofno.com/. We have also built a "311" customer information line at (877) 286-6431 or 504-658-2299. There are trained staff there waiting to help you with your questions, live operators.
The planning and deployment took 3-4 people about 3 weeks, while they maintained other duties. We feel that the value this is providing is justified. If we reduce permit issuance time by 20%, put better information into the hands of the police/fire/ems folks, and provide free Internet access including voice calling capability to our citizens/businesses then I think it is justified. And we are moving the network to other parts of the City, not just FQ, CBD, Warehouse District and uptown. The libraries, schools and business areas of many neighborhoods are being developed as they get power and people start to return... We are all just trying to do what we can to help. My thing just happens to be IT...
On the CDMA issue a few posters above, I don't think CDMA is inherently unreliable, it does provide mobility and I think the costs are reasonable. But CDMA and EVDO did go down in Katrina and have taken some extended time to come back. Mesh WiFi also has mobility, high speed, good capacity, plus native IP, VLAN segmentation, QoS, VPN support and other extended services. Plus it is a capital investment in the City's infrastructure - a big plus in this city right now. I love our EVDO network, it just does not meet all our needs and we can't afford it for everyone. There is a lot of room in this market for providers of all types of services. The reason we lag woefully behind the Koreas and Icelands of the world in affordable broadband is a lack of competition, not too much of it. We need more carriers, more creative options, more services. If that has to be a municipality for now, so be it. We will take that challenge for the sake of the efficiency of our efforts and the service of our citizens.
I just don't see how setting up a wifi network detracts manpower away from other tasks like setting up power grids. You criticized Chris earlier for this. How is an I.T. guy supposed to know how to set up a power grid or do any other specialized task? They have people that do that and they're doing what they can do. If someone is skilled in setting up networks and they're available to do so, then let em do it.
I work for a consulting engineering firm that specializes in the design of major hospitals, schools and other large buildings. We're the kind of company that would be designing and coordinating all the construction of all your major buildings, hospitals, homes, and utilities (just like the power grids that you mention) that need to be repaired or replaced in the city. You pointed out that contractors need to be more organized and do their job right. Well that's exactly what we do, and and the fact is we are dependent on networks.
Here are some examples of what our job would be like without access to an external network:
*Without access to things like email and file sharing, coordination between us, the architects and the contractors would be severely limited. Instead of being able to send and access drawings, blue-prints and specifications we would have to send all our data by cds and documents through the postal system, which would add weeks upon weeks (not to mention tons of money) to a design process that already takes months.
*Instead of being able to send email contacts we'd have to do all of our other coordination through the phones, at least doubling the amount of time we spend calling and talking to architects, contractors and state officials each and every day.
*All that adds to increased project time, which means we'd have to charge our clients more money, which in turn detracts even more money away from the construction phase and budgeting for all of these projects.
*Even more coordination meetings would have to be scheduled, which again adds much more time and money to the project.
Those are just a few examples of the problems we'd face, and we're just a small part of the whole process. We're talking about adding, literally, hundreds of thousands of dollars for the larger projects, per project, on the scale of a whole city, just on our end, just because we lack a "tool" that you say we don't need. The ammount of work that is required, and will continue to be required, to rebuild this city is huge. You expect everyone to rebuild a whole city, getting all your power grids back up and running, providing running water and operable buildings for a whole city in a timely manner, using methods that are over 20 years dated, adding millions of dollars to construction costs, and at the same time you want to complain about where funding is going?
Chris I hear you and I appreciate you taking some time to respond.
I'm not going to go on continuing to question your position because while I have strong reservations about build a WiFi network when leadership is needed in other areas, its not something I can impact. I graduated from Jesuit back in 1990 and I've been involved with the city of New Orleans for years both on the contracts side and on the volunteers side. One thing I can say is that the city in most instances lacks coherent focus in the leadership department. This is something that I'm seeing happen right now as well. The leaders and managers of these projects are needed elsewhere. While you may not know how to handle electrical certifications for contractors setting up trailers in the city, I'm sure you know the checklist and can make sure the contractors perform those tasks. Its a function of bandwidth, not skill. Other neighboring parishes aren't having the same issues with their contractors (yeah, I've been back and forth to the city several times now and have had to stay in Algiers every time).
What is missing is information coordination between the people with problems and the people who can solve those problems. You don't need a town hall meeting to find out about these issues - what you need is an integrated information management solution. As an IT person myself I can tell you that I'm amazed that one still hasn't been put in front of the public yet. Information is still scattered across multiple agencies and difficult to locate. From dealing with the Katrina folks I have living in my house (across 4 families) I can tell you that if you guys think that the information you're delivering is clear and usable as it is - it isn't. I can also tell you that if you think a WiFi network mounted on lightposts is going to do better than a CDMA network - you need to reeval. Nevertheless, many people are still confused as to what the plan is, what the milestones are, what the expected dates are, what areas are being worked on, what the situation is for services, what the situation is for schools, grocery stores, etc. Surely that should be a higher priority IT project? If you need help in other areas (and I've said this in several meetings), ASK! You would be surprised how much the citizens of New Orleans and the rest of the country would be willing to volunteer their skills in these areas, but as of yet I have STILL not seen a list of projects that the city needs help with. I personally would love to help you guys out. But there isn't a place on the website that asks for help, and driving around the streets of New Orleans and nearly getting hit bt cars and dump trucks doesn't inspire me to come to city hall and try and get those answers. After the storm my company was toiling away into the night building out a resource management system for the NAACP so they could better coordinate receiving donations. We didn't charge them a penny. But I digress, back to the matter at hand.
People WANT to come back to the city. They don't need FEMA's permission to come back to their homes or anyone elses. What needs to be addressed is the mechanism to get people back into the city. Entergy controls the grid, but the city controls access TO the grid through the permits. That's been a VERY slow process. Even the recently announced changes to the permitting process don't actually have a system in place to help people submit information for permits. Is that not a more important IT goal? I could list out the services that could best benefit from IT service for people out of the city whose best way of getting information about the city and what they should do is the website. This isn't to put down what you've accomplished - but merely to point out that if you have extra time there ARE other things of far more importance than building out a WiFi system - FAR more important.
Just like Nagin was upset to see politicians giving themselves a pat on the back during Katrina, your people still outside New Orleans - our brothers and sisters are upset at seeing a picture of a working French Quarter as a representation of the state of New Orleans. They want to see progress in their areas, they (just like Nagin) want people to roll up their sleaves and get involved in the nitty gritty of getting the city together.
Get the lights and the water on and working, THEN start talking about everything else. See you on the 6th.... I'll be bringing the 15 from my house and you guys should be prepared to answer questions about why people outside of the city can't do x,y, and z - yet there is ample time to plan, stage , and deploy a working WiFi network.
Viney lets get down to brass tacks shall we. You're talking about what life would be like without a WiFi network that the city hasn't had in since, forever. So lets address these issues. Do you have a system that will coordinate all of this activity? Do you have a network operations center to handle it? Do you have the manpower to replace pieces of that network when they break? Do you have a force of WiFi devices RIGHT NOW to take advantage of the WiFi bandwidth? And most importantly, do you have any software systems that can communicate in an encrypted manner to move data across the city?
Are you going to build them right now? Surely you're not going to take some Windows XP laptops and start sending email around the city and call that a better management solution than the one you've got.
Chris,
My name is Don Elbers. I am an incoming graduate student at Tulane University in the Electrical Engineering Computer Science Department. I am also a recipient of a Louisiana Board of Regents Fellowship.
I was wondering if you or Mr. Greg Meffert are looking for any volunteers or interns for the implementation/installation of this wifi network. I would love to assist in the rebuilding of New Orleans especially since this particular project relates to my own field of study.
My personal email can be provided upon request.
Regards,
Don P. Elbers
One more comment to build upon what Gregory stated, free WiFi isn't 'free', someone is paying for the bandwidth, the parts, upkeep and support of a city wide WiFi system and at last I checked the city of New Orleans doesn't exactly have a sound budget at the moment to be making such a move. Furthermore, did the City give the people a chance to vote on this system? Will the city be using tax payer's money to pay for the system and if so shouldn't you guys at least ask the people before spending their money on WiFi... oh wait, the people actually have to be IN New Orleans to vote.
#67 Exactly...#55 Viney for there to be a recovery in new orleans people need to come back to the city and pick up there lives again ...wifi is not going to heat there homes and flush there toilets and cook their meals...its also not going to single handedly entice bussiness back to the city either...people want to come back i am sure ....they can't come back untill certain things are in place and free wifi is not one of them ....if there was a pressing need for wifi in the city right now there would be people willing to pay to recieve it and someone would show up to impliment it to make money....free wifi will not draw bussiness back to a wrecked city it will however drain resources in a direction that is not needed and will hurt the real recovery efforts ...we shall see tho i suppose
Look people I am always in favor of any municipal or city wifi proposals or implementations. Any victories for city wifi's is great!! However, the reason that this wifi announcment is getting such a bad response from the news and the public is simple. Free wifi is useless if the potential users have no home to live in much less no computers to access the wifi with! If the mayor of New Orleans had waited to announce free wifi for a month or 2 when more recovery had occured then this service would have been praised by the community. Instead the mayor offered this wifi deal at a time when the community is still trying to sort out how and if they will rebuild thier lives, businesses, and homes. I just can't see a father looking at the tattered remnants of his life and home then looking over to his wife and saying: Well honey the destruction of our home is awful and will cost thousands of bucks to fix, but worst of all how will we ever get online so I can look at my porn site! Wifi service is good, but after the horid job that mayor did with the poor preperations for that storm, the people want more help than this publicity stunt offered by a mayor that most of that community either has lost faith in, or blame for his lack of leadership in that cities time of crisis!!!!
Looks like Viney might be Chris Drake or one of his employees. BTW... Where is this network? I was down there yesterday and traveled all over the French Quarter and CBD with laptop in hand, parked under these wireless nodes and didn't see an SSID? Is this deployment active? The city is acting like it is?
Is this the Chris Drake that was responsible for coordinating communication systems between parishes in and around the city of New Orleans prior, during and post hurricane? Wasn’t your title director of inoperability?
Rich, the SSID is CityOfNewOrleans and there's a router/AP sitting on the light poll next to Mother's on the corner of Poydras and Tchoup. The network appears to be up, but we can't connect to it. Chris?
ya'll are just pathetic. i frankly agree with the Native on this one. Yall got good points on both sides. However. Let's state this again. If you dont live here. you dont know jack Squat save for what you see on tv. Ive been home since shortly after Rita. Making repairs to my apartment and so forth, as well as working doubles and triple shift's at work because i just happen to work at one of the busiest FR QTR bar's. I have no Cable Service, nor do i have phone service. and Cellular Service has just been all around Crappy! now someone wants to compensate me and give me a reason to stay home and Do my Blog's or send emails to family and friends back home who put up with me in the aftermath, or stay in touch with those who wont be coming back asap or ever, For free! Damn right ill be happy. I could damn well care less where "MY" tax dollars are going... I've already cancelled any further benefits from red cross or fema. I do not need it. What i need is atleast some way to be able to stay home and yack online with multiple people, and not have to go out to the same bar i work at just because others are there and i get Cheap drinks. SHEESH you people make me sick. yall act like this actually affects you NON NEW ORLEANIANS! well guess what quite frankly it doesnt. Shut up. F*CK OFF, SIT ON IT and ROTATE! Because my give a damn for yall is Far from broken... its Busted beyond repair. I remember sitting in the new orleans chat room and a fricking "Cuban" comes in and starts ranting on us cause some people who lost entire homes and families got special celebrity treatments. HA! if i lost everything, i sure would like some royal treatment to make the pain a little easier.
How many of you on here have ever WITNESSED a natural disaster of this magnitude? how many of you have ever lost your homes your families, your Artwork, your Sacred possessions to a Natural disaster.... I bet theres only a few of you on here who have. or even rode out this storm and lost nothing. but you still lost your security, your ability to just go home.
Did i want to be shuffled all over the US with family? did i want to be stuck in the bitter cold of Erie PA? no. i didnt. i wanted to stay in my home. and sleep and eat, and work. and Make lots and lots of money and be happy. But no i had to have a Big freaking Douche!
To all of you ungrateful spiteful and SO CALLED KNOW IT ALLS.... Shut the FCUK up! i'm tired of your whining! if there should be someone whining, it should be US new orleanians! Until you have a catagory 5 bust down your house i dont want to hear it!
Frankly im looking forward to receiving free wifi. Lord knows Entergy is already going to raise the price of Electricity and Gas to Outrageous levels. I need to save some freakin money somehow! even if i have to pay for my WiFi by my tax dollars. WHo gives a rats arse! i never see those taxes anyways. and neither do you.
Know that saying... Freedom aint Free? guess what pays for your freedom. YOUR taxes and your Work... Shut up. do your job and mind your own damned Business. Unless you wanna help. Dont even waste your Time and energy to rant about our Recovery efforts.
I am part of a group, FRIENDS OF NOLA in Washington, DC, made up either of NOLA diaspora now in DC or DC residents with close family in NOLA. We're volunteering to help lobby Congress and the Executive Branch on behalf of average New Orleanians who don't have paid lobbyists and lawyers to work for them.
Chris Drake, I'd like to communicate with you about speaking out for NOLA residents. For example, we've sent an email to BellSouth asking them not to withdraw their support because they're angry about the WiFi.. We'd like to send you a copy. Can't find your email or phone number anywhere. This blog is the only way I know to get hold of you.
A couple of things you should know. Your website doesn't include either a telephone number for or an email address for your BringNewOrleansBack Committee. That's not good communications, man. Let the public know how to contact the group.
Next, your "311" group needs refinements big time. Here's a couple of problems. 1. The main city number dosn't link over to them when it's off after hours. Why not? And why isn't there a message when it's off instead of just ringing and ringing and ringing? That's pretty basic - it could say where to call, for gosh sake. 2. The 311 number isn't connected with your 911 number - that's what the 311 people told me. Not good at all. That linkage is important. 3. The people staffing your 311 number don't have a complete city phone directory or organizational chart. How do I know? I asked them who was the Director of the Office of Technology, and what was his phone number and email address. They couldn't help me at all. 4. Did you know that your 311 number folks, at least after hours, are located in -- get this -- South Dakota!! They are bright and well-meaning, but they know diddley about New Orleans. Do something about that!
Finally, you want people to register for your CityOfNO.com site. You don't say what benefits they're goin to get for registering. Nor is it possible to register. Why? The format requires that much of the form be filled out. But some of the required information areas don't seem to be live. Like, for instance, listing the state in which you live. And filling out the sequent question/answer section - that isn't working, either. So, you don't say why people shoulld sign up, and then make it impossible to do so. Please fix this up.
Fix it all up, and we'll be grateful. The WiFi idea, which will hopefully get underway despite BellSouth being pissed off, is a really fine idea, timely, needed, and a real shot in the arm. Good going on that.So, communicate!
Susan Meehan
For Susan, needing to contact me, my email address is cdrake@mayorofno.com. Susan, I am passing on your comments to the appropriate directors of the various areas that cover the issues you raised. Thanks.
For post 72, yes the SSID is CityofNewOrleans and there is a node where you indicated. You should be able to view available wireless netowrks and connect to it. After you connect you have to register, they you have full Internet access anywhere on the network. We just went over 400 registered users on the network. The only issue we have seen is some laptops seem to see the public network as encrypted when it is not, probably because of the encrypted network that is also running on the same hardware. Just refresh the list of available wireless networks and it should stop asking for it and you can connect. We are working on this intermittent issue. Like everything else, we are doing a lot with few resources and did not want to hold back offering this network until it was perfect and every last kink worked out...
For number 71, yes I was Program Manager for an interoperability grant for a while as one of my jobs for the City. Katrina changed a lot of peoples jobs descriptions...
there is no wireless in new orleans. i am a french quarter resident and neither myself or anyone i know can locate a cityofno wireless signal. it does not exist. maybe city officials should actually install the system and "turn it on" before stating that "wireless is fully functional in the french quarter". chris?
I am having trouble connecting to the CityOfNewOrleans wireless network. My network adaptor shows the city network listed as a "Security-enabled wireless network" which requires a WEP key to connect. However, when you call City Hall and talk to the Tech department (i.e. if you're lucky enough to get through to them cuz they don't usually answer their phone calls) they will tell you it's an unsecured network and does not require a WEP key. So what do you do? NO HELP FROM CITY HALL!
Did anyone else have this same problem? Can anyone help? I would appreciate any info or help in this regard. Thanks.
The way I understand it is there are two wireless networks being set up in new orleans, one is security-enabled and the other one isn't. the security-enabled network is for police, fire etc and the unsecured one is for us. i am unable to pick up any signal at my house in the french quarter but i've heard that the security-enabled one is starting to pop up around the place. i hope this means the other one will be close behind. i know what you're saying about city hall, they are no use what-so-ever and have no idea what they're talking about.
Jason, they told me the same thing about there being 2 networks and now it makes sense because my network adaptor is picking up both. (I'm close to Decatur & St. Philipe). I get a very strong signal for the secured one. The unsecured one pops up every now and then on my list but with a very weak signal.
How long will it take them to fix this? I was told by the City Hall tech dept. this morning, "Just call back every morning to see if the kinks have been taken out of the system yet or not."
I think given the traditional "efficiency" of City Hall, we probably won't be able to use this network for several more weeks. (It's already been 3 weeks since I started picking up the network signal.)
Why don't they just issue people a temporary WEP key while they are still busy taking these "kinks" out? Once the issues are resolved, change the network key and people can then start logging on to the unsecured network.