Pushing Community Wi-Fi and the CBA
Community Media Workshop: Newstips - Community Wi-Fi Pushed
It’s my birthday, and the cause is going strong!
Here’s the full text from Newstips:
A coalition of community groups is meeting with companies bidding on contracts for the city’s planned wireless network, encouraging them to include in their proposals a community benefits agreement providing neighborhood networks.
The Coalition for Community Wireless Networks met recently with representatives of Earthlink and is scheduled to meet with AT&T this week.
“We want to plant a seed in bidders’ minds” that community benefits agreements would make their proposals more attractive, said Ben Helphand of the Center for Neighborhood Technology.
CCWN has joined a call by the Chicago Digital Access Alliance for the city to broaden internet access provisions in its request for proposals - which now requires equipment, training, and discounted service for low-income individuals - to address community-wide access issues. CCWN includes a number of community development corporations, while CDAA represents community technology centers.
The groups envision the city’s wireless system as a “network of community networks,” with community institutions and businesses served by each neighborhood’s network.
“It’s an opportunity to bring economic development into our community” by helping merchants reach a local audience, encouraging internet-based businesses, and linking residents to local jobs, said Ernest Sanders of the Greater Auburn-Gresham Development Corp. A community network would also better serve local schools, civic groups, and churches, he said.
A community benefits agreement would bring resources and support to efforts like Technology Bridges in Englewood. There FaithTech Network is conducting a digital assets inventory and developing 25 church-based community technology centers - with similar efforts underway in Bronzeville, Woodlawn, and North Lawndale, said Pierre Clark, a CDAA founder.
The groups point to community benefits in Minneapolis’s wireless program, including a digital inclusion fund backed by a percentage of service providers’ revenue, and a free “walled garden” of content featuring neighborhood groups, city websites and public safety information, available to anyone who can access the signal.
Bids on the city’s request for proposals are due at the beginning of next year.
CDAA has held six neighborhood meetings on the proposal for a community benefits agreement and plans more, Clark said; the next one takes place this Friday, December 15, at 5 p.m. at the office of Networking for Democracy, 3411 W. Diversey.