By Jeff Jones

Community groups ‘connect’ to Wi-Fi

Pictures of steel mills and blue-collar workers carrying lunch pails trod through most people’s minds when they think of Pittsburgh.

Yet, this southwestern Pennsylvania city has been a staging ground for wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) advances that now provide high-speed Internet access at affordable prices to more than 30 community groups.

In Pittsburgh, a collection of nonprofits developed a Wi-Fi network out of necessity after a local cable company’s plan to lay fiber lines that would bring high-speed Internet access to community groups hit a snag. The nonprofits were told they would have to pay thousands of dollars in installation costs and hundreds of dollars in monthly fees, according to area nonprofit officials’ recollection of the talks.

Instead of fronting the cable company the money to do the work, the groups used their combined tech know-how to create a secure point-to-point Wi-Fi network using panels strategically placed across the city.

“It was a nonprofit, entrepreneurial response to a problem,” said Jeffrey Forster, director of technology services at the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh. “They had some smart technical people involved who said, ‘if we can’t get wires out, I bet some of these forward-looking funders would help us put up some panels and get access points to nonprofits’.”

Essentially, Wi-Fi replaces network cables with radios using a spectrum adjacent to cell phones (802.11). The resulting networks can be encrypted so only authorized users can connect. Wireless networks, both connected to the Internet and not encrypted, are commonly known as “hotspots.”

More than 30 Pittsburgh-area nonprofits have signed on as network members, provided by Wireless Neighborhoods, which is the offspring of a working group of several area nonprofits that first got together to talk with the city and the cable company during the late 1990s. It’s a partnership of several organizations including Three Rivers Connect and Information Renaissance, said Stephen MacIsaac, executive director, Wireless Neighborhoods.

The group has received important funding from the Heinz Endowments and state grants, he said.

Members use a high-speed wireless connection supplied through four panels placed on the WQED Tower in Pittsburgh. The panels work on a sight-based process, have a 240-degree coverage and a three-mile radius, MacIsaac said. Other panels located in Pittsburgh’s North Side and East End extend the network’s reach to groups unable to pick it up from the main tower, MacIsaac said. Individual panels placed atop nonprofits’ buildings complete the network.

One panel costs roughly $1,200 for installation. Associated materials add another $1,000. Organizations pay $100 a month for connectivity, MacIsaac said.

“We cover up-front costs for a majority of the groups;” some groups paid their own expenses, he said.

Because trees and buildings can get in the signal’s way, it’s not a fix-all solution, but it is a nice one for a number of groups, MacIsaac said.

MacIsaac said the creators of the network describe it as similar to a college campus. All the buildings or departments are independent entities, but they’re served by one centralized system. Security, always a big concern when dealing with technology, is accounted for in the network set-up.

It’s point-to-point across an encrypted wireless signal, MacIsaac said. “It’s no more or less secure than a fiber line,” he added. “You can’t walk down the street with a wireless card and pick up this signal.”

Some organizations treat the system as a garden variety Internet service provider, Forster said. Other groups use it in programs.

Community House, a nonprofit on Pittsburgh’s North Side, uses the connection for its programs. A founding member of Wireless Neighborhoods, Community House runs a digital storytelling project in which children and adults use movies and audio to create identity profiles. Jan Leo, director of multi-media arts at the Community House, said the group has compiled some 200 of these self-reflective stories that outline the subject’s goals.

“The broadband capacity helps us let people tell their own stories in their own voices,” said Rick St. John, planning facilitator for Community House.

In some cases, the group relies on the affordable high-speed connection to share these files with other community organizations, Leo said.

The nonprofit is in the process of building a Web site where these digital stories can be stored and shared, Leo said. The Web site should be ready by year’s end.

Community House also is working with Pittsburgh area schools to help learning disabled children create portfolios of their accomplishments and share them electronically to enhance their ability to find appropriate employment, or help them transition from middle school to senior school, Community House officials said.

It also uses the connection for videoconferencing. For instance, children may talk with experts through videoconferencing, Leo said. After Community House completes a move to a new facility, it will use the high-speed connection for additional video conferencing capabilities, such as community gatherings, officials said.

The Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) launched its Wireless Community Network project during 2003. It’s being funded by federal, state and foundation grants to the tune of $1.3 million over three years, according to Nicole Friedman, interim project manager for the Wireless Community Network project at CNT.

The pilot project leaders hope to connect 250 people in each of four areas in Chicago for a total of 1,000, Friedman said. It encompasses residents, community organizations and small businesses that have had trouble getting connected at affordable prices, Friedman said.

The project is scheduled to finish in fall 2006. “It’s helping to build (community organizations’) capacity to deliver services,” Friedman said. “One of the outcomes of the pilot project is to come up with a sustainable and replicable model.”

The city of Chicago is also making gains regarding Wi-Fi technology and usage.

The city is using Wi-Fi technology built on top of a fiber-based network that reaches some 1,600 locations, said Chris O’Brien, chief information officer of Chicago and board member of the IT Resource Center.

The city had positive feedback when it “lit up” the Richard Daley Center, a public gathering point, with Wi-Fi capability more than 18 months ago. They have since rolled the network out to 85 public libraries, he said.

Chicago places Wi-Fi equipment at wired spots and segments them off from the city’s network, he said. The city doesn’t charge a fee for access.

Nonprofits could take advantage of the Wi-Fi capability by using the network for workers out in the field. “Basically, all you need is a wireless card” to access the network, O’Brien said.

Each Wi-Fi site costs roughly $1,200-$1,300 to set up, O’Brien said.

O’Brien acknowledged that there could be potential concerns. The city may track what people are doing, but he said city workers don’t have an interest in finding out what people are doing on their laptops and don’t have the time to track it.

“Our network we consider to be as secure as any publicly used network would be,” O’Brien said. “We obviously have an interest in making sure that there’s no security concerns that would filter over into our network.” There’s state of the art virus control, encryption and other safety precautions to prevent data being snooped, he said.

The city hasn’t abandoned thoughts of connecting people through wires, O’Brien said.

“We still work off the notion that whether it’s wireless or wired connectivity that we’re providing that’s a goal the mayor has to bring that kind of capability to people throughout the city,” O’Brien said. “Wi-Fi is a relatively cheap and easy way to reach a lot of people.”

Next generation services are even more promising, he said.

O’Brien explained that some telecom providers are rolling out next generation wireless technology, and the city is talking to them about those services.

“It will always be a work in progress,” O’Brien said. “The goal is to give people as many options as possible.”

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