wrythings

I am one among many Chicagoans who were deeply inspired by the success of the Minneapolis grassroots digital inclusion effort that attained a Community Benefits Agreement as a part of their city-wide wireless agreement. Among the concepts promoted in Minneapolis was a provision of a “walled garden” … a space of community identified and city content that would be freely accessible to anyone able to receive the wireless signal. Some resources were also to go towards community portals for up to 90 neighborhoods in Minneapolis. Presumably, the content of those portals would be included in the walled garden? A committee was formed to flesh out those details of the contract.

The Minneapolis Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) served for us as a starting point in the Chicago campaign (still under way and in need of support) and led to the formation of the Chicago Digital Access Alliance (CDAA). We began by taking a positive but critical look at the Minneapolis model, considering it an evolutionary step in public connectivity.

With each item on the Minneapolis CBA we asked: did they get enough? what does Chicago want? what does Chicago need? These are all preparatory to the wider dialog: what kind of Chicago do we want to be?

Chicago’s a bigger city … in terms of population and geography. Scale matters, and local political culture does too. But aside from those particulars, the principles of the movement for digital excellence and civic engagement allow for a wider dialog between and within communities. Communications policy as an object of public deliberation requires that we step up the discourse to a new level. We’re addressing topics that are multilayered and cross-cutting with all of our social needs and aspirations.

The “Walled Garden” appeared to be one of those concepts that required much further deliberation, not to mention some work on the language and framing.

A “walled garden” has some negative connotations in Internet parlance. A gated community doesn’t truly serve it’s residents well, nor our wider society, but we understand what motivates people to create them. This dissatisfaction with the terminology was not a minor part in desiring something more, something better.

But let’s start with the specifics of the original framing of Minneapolis’ walled garden concept: some community identified content and some city provided content would be freely available to anyone within range of the wireless signal. This ties to the basic questions of ownership of Wireless Internet Real Estate: splash pages and portals. Communities and Cities need a mechanism for local content and local identity and it needs to be front and center. We should view this space from a civic perspective. In Chicago we ask: what is the character of the network we want? Is’nt the splash page… the landing page as you join the network a critical aspect of that? What will the network encourage?

Some city content. Public convenience, utility and necessity. Branding for the city on the network. Lot’s of motivations there. But though we may be citizens and residents of a particular city, are we not also citizens and residents of the state in which we live, and of the nation? In other words, if there is a logic to having public access to city government resources online, in a free “walled garden” area, would this same logic not extend to state government sites, and federal sites? This broke open the concept and the idea of the Civic Garden emerged. Why not make all .gov sites available under these terms? The airwaves belong to the public anyway. We only license them out (or make them available for unlicensed use). Wireless providers need access to the right of way, pole attachments etc., you get the point.

If we accept the premise that leads to “some city content” being made available in this way, all .Gov is a step away.

Now, let us build on this case. Promotion of educational institutions and resources serves the public interest. Let’s make the content of school and higher learning available under this framework. Hence our call to make .edu a part of the Civic Garden. Now, .edu is a shorthand here: we intend this to cover the concept of education broadly.

An interesting aspect of this differentiation of select top level domains (TLDs) is in how the brands allowed themselves to be diluted. A fair number of government sites have been established under .com, with a supposition that people can’t type .gov. The different TLDs have meaning, and this is a means of opening the discourse on the relevance of the public sphere. We have an interest in opening up spaces for the commons.

The third leg of the Civic Garden pertains to community content produced locally, outside of government or government funded institutional channels. The Minneapolis walled garden and support of community portals establishes the basic principle. Communities have a right to create their own identity and to shape the character and flavor of the local network.

I expect the model of the Civic Garden to continue to evolve… word is that Minneapolis is adopting use of the term in association with their effort.

What is Digital Literacy without deep dedication to cultivating Literacy and Judgment? What is Digital Citizenship without ongoing effort to promote a robust Civic Life? What is Digital Inclusion without a true effort and policy of Inclusion? What’s the Expansion in Digital Expansion? Digital Government? Digital Community? Digital Neighborhoods? The Digerati? Don’t get me started on Digital Futures and Opportunities…

Digital isn’t the point, whatever the form: e-this, i-that. We single out recent technologies with magical promise by such signals as they arrive in successive waves. Technology that has permeated society is barely recognized as technology by most of us: television, telephone, tricycles, fire and other dangerous things. We know we need a mechanic when something goes wrong (if we aren’t technically inclined), but with the newer technologies most of society remains mystified (including practitioners).

We can no longer participate in the perpetuation of that mystification through repetition and variation on the incantations. We can’t proclaim the benefits of indiscriminate innovations and extensions in and of the virtual world dreaming that that is enough and will necessarily and sufficiently transform our society.

Digital Inclusion is the term of art that really broke the spell for me. “What art?” you may ask… the selling of networks and network consulting and ancillary services and technologies, whether wireless, WiMAX-WiFi or other broadbands and slices of spectrum. If we’re Keynesians after all, then let’s just say so. If not, or if we’re moderated Keynesians, we had better be more critical of our technology planning and spending. (And by odd coincidence, promoting public discourse on media and technology is just the prescription for an inclusive, civic minded, digital and media literate citizenry ready to take up tools to their own purposes and to make investments toward common purposes.)

We need to become serious about social justice questions, embrace them as the core of our movement. We need to become serious about issues that demand a holistic view, we need to treat our work in the context of the whole of lives of individuals, families and communities.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-digital. To be clear: the digital divide has not gone away but/and deserves our attention in so far as it is a divide, not because it is digital.

I favor a positive view on the way forward as long as it doesn’t deny where we are and what it will take. I see great potential in these technologies and in the expansion of communication capacity. I just want the digital in context and in service to the world we want and the dialogue that gets us headed there, and I want our individual and collective investments to consciously shape the character of our networks and our society. We can’t take these outcomes for granted. The sales pitch is always promising.

So, with each Digitized phrase, we must ask: how does it stand on its own? Can we forget the technical innovation of the moment, live without the distraction and get serious about living together?

In our work promoting Digital Excellence, we’re more than happy to Drop the Digital, we emphasize the Excellence. That’s what we want from students, citizens, families, communities, companies, politics, education and the economy.

If these digital prefix strategies are work-arounds (and no just new and improved sales pitches) for some of us… our attempt at concealing revolutionary socially transforming activity, it’s time for a reality check. We have to become clear about our goals. If it’s a dance of revolutionary work concealed behind revolutionary technologies and obstructed by reactionary policies and practices, make sure it is we who call the tune with the language we choose. Let’s choose what we want and aspire to, not settle upon the limited scraps we may or may not get.

Wireless Cities Communities of Interests: Media and Wireless Communities

The last paragraph of the entry linked above deserves reflection:

Finally it’s important to keep in mind the histories of media. For example, when television was introduced, it was seen as a medium with great potential for education and for creating communities. This is no longer seen to be the case. Radio too had a similar romance in it’s early days. Will wireless have a same fate?

If we are aware of this history, what pains must we take to break the pattern? Is there anything we can do to make sure promises made for the commonweal are kept?

While thinking about a panel on Digital Excellence and Community Internet that Sascha asked me to put together for the 2007 International Summit for Community Wireless Networks I was reviewing some notes I intended to blog from the previous one, held in St. Charles, near St. Louis, Missouri, and decided the story I had heard warranted a retelling.

I’ll neglect the niceties of transition and jump right to my notes:

Media tools have expanded in tremendous variety as a result of computing and the Internet. Collaborative and advanced communication tools are often not the first tools brought to communities when digital divisions are being addressed, but they are the most empowering because they are the tools of using one’s voice.

Let’s for a moment take “voice” literally, as opposed to metaphorically (as creative/expressive outlet)… to consider a wonderful example where quite the opposite occurred.

I’d heard part of the story before, as I am friends with communications technology activists who were directly involved in the efforts to bring community communications infrastructure and tools to the hurricane devastated gulf.

Harold Feld, of the Media Access Project, a DC group directly engaged in media policy advocacy at the national level recounted the story as a story of political heroism and to some degree one of civil disobedience.

I was caught up in the poetry of Feld’s closing address to our group, on the themes of Passion and Politics and the recovery of the positive in these themes and in their connection to each other, so forgive me for glossing things over and only offering a limited piece of what he was saying, and also if I blend the next series of points which really is an agglomeration of the sentiments expressed by several.

The main thing for me as regard to this conversation is that many people think of wireless in terms of computing and laptops… making life and work perhaps more flexible and comfortable for white-collar workers…. the image being people accessing their laptops for whatever purpose in a cafe.

Leaders in the wireless movement took it upon themselves to actively engage with the FCC and more directly in the effort to help others in the aftermath of Katrina. They got in their cars and went down to a staging area on someone’s farm and proceeded to deploy community developed wireless communications backbone equipment… not so people could use laptops at cafes but so people could use Voice over Internet services to contact friends and family - to reconnect - to let others know how they were.

Another person recounted the story of one of these wireless activists who needed to climb a tower, and a local sheriff whose entire communications capability was reduced to a 2-way radio… and the sheriff asked simply what the activist was going to do for him and his community… essentially, are you going to do something good for us?

Politics was set aside for a political act. The sheriff, understanding that this person was bringing telephony to an area where the communications infrastructure was wiped out was there to do something good. He said, of the tower and door, which they really didn’t have any permission to legally access… if it is locked, “I’ll shoot the lock off myself.”

Together they acted, in a political act… one not too dissimilar from civil disobedience…

These sorts of stories need to be told and retold. There are community level solutions to many problems, and some involve technologies that while advanced, are not terribly difficult to understand or deploy, and which have robust features and characteristics. The communities’ ability to respond in crisis is something that requires greater distribution of digital and technical literacy, but more than that it requires an understanding that we can act to our common benefit on many more areas of our life than we otherwise generally feel.

Moving on to one last example… a gentleman from India spoke eloquently on the importance of technology for communications among those with disabilities… thinking even of tools that voice enable applications or allow for alternate means of processing text, that this has benefits likewise for low-literacy persons… imagining that we have local community intranets replete with data of use to people…

These are all examples of community resources and potential resources that can be deployed and invested in on a local basis… and yet we are so little aware of these possibilities. These are media resources with social purpose: overcoming isolation and empowering people.

Josh Breitbart of People’s Production House (NYC) emphasizes that having the right process is paramount to the public interest in planning communications networks and enumerates 5 key process points that would serve us well in just about any public project.

The most important thing I’ve learned about municipal broadband as I’ve observed and analyzed the processes in Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Boston, and elsewhere is that there is no cookie-cutter solution, no easy answer. The critical thing to finding the right solution is having the right process of working towards that solution.

Here are the keys, as I’ve come to understand them, to a healthy process, one that minimizes conflicts and leads to solid results:

• Sustain open participation beyond the initial public hearing stage, through the entire process and continuing even a solution is implemented.
• Promote horizontal relationships among stakeholders rather than hub-and-spoke relationships that all connect to this committee or to any one person or organization.
• Unite stakeholders around shared technology rather than dividing them into tiers.
• Incorporate existing human resources wherever possible to avoid redundancy and to build on existing relationships.
• Be open with whatever information you gather: publish documents, test results, and regular updates on an accessible website and make them readily available to people without Internet access.

This above is extracted from Josh’s written testimony for the NYC Broadband Advisory Committee.

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.

Originally written as a response to Ron May’s account of our panel at ilCTC Conference:

As one of the co-moderators of the “First Mile/Last Mile” panel at the recent Illinois Community Technology Conference in Hyde Park, I feel it incumbent upon me to clarify some of the discussion you described for your readers.

Our panel (co-moderated by Phil Maclin and myself) addressed the issue of providing connectivity to communities (residents and businesses) through a variety of strategies. The general mode of speaking about these issues is as the “last mile”…

Following our penchant for turning things around we (without originality in this) wanted to emphasize that from a community perspective this is the first mile, not the last mile.

The panelists assembled represented some of the leading doers and thinkers in Illinois on these matters. (Sascha Meinrath, principal organizer of Community Wireless Networking Summit and head of the CUWiN project, Nicole Friedman of the Center for Neighborhood Technologies, Peter and Annie Collins,leading advocates in the Municpal Fiber movement, and the prolific James Carlini.

The panelists addressed strategies for communities to take their connective destiny into their own hands. I think we can all agree that internet connectivity is a community asset that is valuable for our economic development, whether we speak of a neighborhood, a municipality or our region (dare we say the entire State?).

As Carlini points out, quite rightly, this is not just a matter for the civic minded. It makes great business sense. Take his example of housing developers. If a business or even a savvy potential resident does a search for property and selects for certain criteria including broadband availability we can see a seacrh narrow from 140 to a handful. If you are marketing your property, do you want to be in the handful, or do you want to be in the less desirable majority?

This issue scales to communities and municipalities.

Many writers and activists can point to other countries that are enacting policies that demonstrate they get this. We’re talking about fiber capacity to the home, not copper.

But back to our conference and the battle hardened panelists we assembled.

The communities we are concerned with don’t even have adequate copper capability or choice for high speed access, and its more than evident that the incumbent carriers are more interested in investing in fiber where they can obtain maximum profit before they will extend any copper (or better service) to the under-served commuities.

If anyone needs data on this, I refer you to the report issued by the Metropolitan Planning Council earlier this year. The report merely codified what we already know. But the point was to make the case in terms of regional economic development as opposed to helping the disadvantaged cross the digital divide.

I’ll get to my point of correction. Ron cited me as source on something, but the info presented was inaccurate. The point of controversy during the discussion was prompted by the question of “war driving” and the general issue of security and wireless networks. The originator of the controversy was not Stel V. of OnShore.

The dispute centered upon the disposition or motives of people that identify wireless networks or clouds, and whether or not they are secure.

While Security should be an issue for anyone in the networking world, there are different degrees of security needed in different contexts, and in some cases there may be reasons (or intention) to provide open access.

The controversy over motives came up as Andy Carra was about to describe the pro bono work of wiggle.net.

The gentlemen of Wiggle.Net have documented and mapped data regarding networks detected in the wilds of Chicago, and reported in to their site.

If you go to their website you will be able to search for any locality in the Chicago area and see what wireless networks have been detected.

Many people purchase a wireless device to establish a wireless home network, but dont even bother to set basic security protocols. Perhaps if you go to the wiggle.net site you’ll find your own network listed, and whether its open or not. Maybe you want it to be open and you like the idea of sharing your connection with your neighbors. Thats part of the idea of the wireless community networking movement. In Homans Square we witnessed the launch of the Wireless Community Networks project (WCN) of the Center for Neighborhood Technology not quite 2 months ago. This is a federally funded project (under the Dept of Commerce) and is intended as a pilot project. It’s a great example of doing our innovation in the communities that are less likely to be served by the latest and greatest technologies by the for-profit corporations.

The CNT project is piloting the WCN in four areas: Homans Square, Pilsen, Elgin and W. Frankfort.

Illinois is the center for plenty of innovation. The CUWiN project is developing wireless mesh technology that will facilitate deployment of community wireless networks along a mesh topology. They’re already in operation, and the technical innovations are being watched closely, not least by those in Chicago.

I believe that the CNT project and the community volunteer project “chifi.net” are seeking to develop strategies to expand the footprint and impact of the TOP project leveraging developments in the CUWiN software.

This is all to the point of there being a role for (or willingness to) sharing access to wireless networks.

This is not to say that the incumbent providers are ok with this. The cable companies aren’t even very happy about residents using the internet connection with more than one PC in their own homes, let alone sharing outside with others, intentionally or not. Likewise for the major telecom providers. Some ISP’s are happy for their customers to share their bandwidth. Why?

Because they believe that ultimately the customer will want to buy more bandwidth. Makes sense to me.

As to whether some war driving is malicious.. I tend to doubt that very much of it is done in such spirit.

Thats not to say that security isn’t an issue. If you have something to protect, its incumbent upon you to take measures to protect it. But there are definitely ways to share access that is relatively secure… you can protect part of your network with proper routing/firewall settings… and there are definitely reasons to want to share access.

I hope this alleviates some of the question of controversy for our panel, and perhaps some of the participants or readers would like to weigh in on this topic.

I just wanted to set the record straight and say that war driving as documented by the guys of wiggle.net can be a public service for people seeking access to intentionally open networks and for people checking to see if their network was detected as open (and perhaps they didnt realize it).

Security is everyone’s concern, but I note the majority of attacks are coming through my wired lines, and through trojan horses and other malicious code.

But the emphasis of the panel was mainly on the bulk of what Iwrote at the beginning of this message, and what I hope we can take away from this is the question of when our region will begin to think in terms of strategic investment, associating broadband deployment with economic development, and with regard to keeping the talent and technologies we are developing in Illinois productive in this state.

I’d like to advocate for something else that came out of the conference: we need every community in Illinois connected with relatively high speed access, and we need to require a base line of service delivery and quality for all communities that is in accord with regional and nationally competitive priorities.

Chicago needs a plan of action to surpass memory that never happened in Civic Net, and Illinois needs an investment and community economic development strategy that encourages high tech start-ups and small businesses.

Ron, sorry about the last bit of diatribe. I know I am somewhat echoing your basic thesis that the surrounding states have gotten something together and we havent.

As a closing point, I’d like to appreciate Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn and Rep. Connie Howard, two figures that get community technology’s importance for Illinois. I’m still awaiting word on who or when we will have a Technology person in the Governor’s office making some waves that will carry us forward.

Regards,

Michael Maranda

CTCNet Chicago, Board President

AFCN, President-Elect