Peter Orne Broadband Wireless Communities Blog

Wireless Washtenaw Pushing Ahead with Pilots

James McFarlane, Support Services - Information Technology Division, and Uma Harithsa, Manager of Applied Technologies, Washtenaw County, are the co-project-managers of Wireless Washtenaw, a public-private collaboration to bring broadband-wireless access to the residents of Washtenaw County, Michigan. The following is adapted from an overview of Wireless Washtenaw provided by the project managers at the W2i Broadband-Wireless Local Stakeholders Briefing Session in Detroit, Monday, October 16, 2006.

Located in southeast Michigan, Washtenaw County covers 720 square miles and includes 28 cities, villages and townships with a total population of 340,000. Residents live in urban, suburban, and rural areas, and the two largest cities are Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, which are home to the University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University, respectively.

There are 35 departments and 1,400 positions at the county level, including public safety, justice, revenues and record keeping — “all of which would benefit from a wireless blanket,” McFarlane says.
The vision of Wireless Washtenaw is high-speed Internet access equally available to urban, suburban and rural settings in the county within 2007. Through a cooperative effort, Wireless Washtenaw will provide visitors and residents with a seamless wireless experience, including a blend of free and for-fee services. Expected benefits include attracting and retaining jobs and businesses within the county and improving quality of life.

The project is a collaboration among the county’s local-government and educational entities, the City of Ann Arbor, the Road Commission, the University of Michigan, and many additional partners. “It's less a county project than a community project because it engages the community,” says Harithsa. “We’ve had tremendous engagement from the universities, local units of government and membership from the community who have provided us with tremendous input, guidance and enthusiasm. Their participation has been key to wireless Washtenaw’s success thus far.”

Neither Washtenaw County nor any of the project stakeholders will own or operate the network, however. 20/20 Communications will own, operate and maintain the network, and potential subscribers will be directed to the provider to subscribe for services. McFarlane says: “Really what we’re doing is developing a streamlined process and leveraging community assets to build out the wireless network. We partner and provide assets so the private sector will come in with access points to create the wireless blanket.

“We realize the private sector are the experts; they have the capital, funding and expertise to make this a successful project. The public sector has goals, and the private sector has goals. Ours is to reduce the digital divide to create a solution to stimulate economic development. And the private sector looks at ROI and the revenue side. We understand those two goals must be met to develop a win-win situation.”

Wireless Washtenaw kicked off 15 months ago, and more than 120 people were invited to an executive stakeholder committee meeting in March 2006 where the network vision and benefits were presented. More than 60 individuals have since donated time to serve on advisory, business, communications and marketing, governance and technology committees, each with a charter to investigate different business models. For example, the governance committee looked at all the models around the U.S. to identify those that could work best for the county, and the IT committee looked at the technical requirements. All the committees met together to work on the RFI.

On June 7, 2006, the private sector was engaged through the release of an RFI, to which 23 companies throughout the U.S. responded. The various committees met with all the companies to talk about the technology, business models, and challenges, and how to improve the efficiencies of the community. From this, it gained valuable information from which it was able to craft an RFP based on the available resources in Washtenaw County.

Wireless Washtenaw received four quality responses to the RFP:

• 20/20 Communications with Siemens,
• AT&T with IBM,
• MichTel, and
• Every://WARE.

The various committees evaluated the scores, and on June 15, the recommendation was made to the county commissioners to go with 20/20 and Siemens.

In the meantime, to complement the business model, the planning committee began securing assets from among the county’s 28 local-government units. “We wanted to bring all these assets to the table, to whoever won our project,” McFarlane says, “and in return for doing that, we asked for a free form of service for every visitor, resident, and mobile commuter.”

Wireless Washtenaw also developed a governance structure. The Michigan State Legislature passed H.B. 5237 restricting municipalities’ engagement in wireless projects. Over the past 15 months, the Governance committee had been looking at spinning Wireless Washtenaw into a not-for-profit, but the bill stipulated that the county would need to hold all the contracts. Wireless Washtenaw has a board to administer all the contracts as well as a stakeholder committee to ensure all stakeholders have a voice in the direction of the project. “We’ll have an executive operations committee to make sure constituents are satisfied,” McFarlane says.

Three pilots are expected to come online in the next two to three weeks. 20/20 will begin installing radios on county assets in Ann Arbor, Saline and a consortium of rural areas including the Village of Manchester, Bridgewater Township, Freedom Township, Manchester Township and Sharon Township.

“We want to really test out the technology in different landscapes as well as the consumer take rate,” McFarlane says. “Siemens has never partnered with 20/20 before, so we want to ensure they have a seamless partnership for the residents of our community.” The pilot stage is expected to run about 30–90 days, and if all goes well, 20/20 and its partners will be selected as the winners of the Wireless Washtenaw partnership.

• Everyone will receive free 84 Kbps service, continuous and uninterrupted
• Individual pricing starts out at $35 (up to a 1MB)
• Mixed Wi-Fi and pre-WiMAX network
• Network neutrality to be upheld
• The goal is to have 720 square miles of WC covered by the end of December 2007

One of several lessons learned throughout the 15-month project is to use conservative time lines. “As project managers, we had to constantly revisit and negotiate our timelines,” McFarlane says. “We thought it would take a four to five weeks to sign the contract with 20/20, but it took over two months.”

Much information gathering, discussions and due diligence are required to ensure the model is successful, as well as identifying all the resources that can be brought to the table to assist the private sector in building out the wireless infrastructure.

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