[CWN-Summit] Blogs Be Damned, Newsletter Article on National Community Wireless Summit

[Dharma Dailey]

Here is the unedited article on the Summit that's going in the 
Prometheus newsletter:


Imagine and Implement Community Wireless Summit 2006
  Shows Community Wireless at a "Critical Juncture"
-by Dharma Dailey


People from far flung Community Wireless projects - Seattle to New 
Orleans- San Diego to New York- joined  Developers, Policy Wonks, and 
Community organizers for a weekend in early April in St. Charles, MO to 
kvetch, cabal, and connoiter on the future of Community Wireless.  
Plugged as the National Wireless Summit, of the 200 participants there 
was a strong international representation with several participants 
hailing from Canada, Ghana, India and Europe.  Together under one roof  
strategizing for “Digital Inclusion,” the Summit was a confluence for 
people who swim in the Media Reform movement and those who work in 
Community Technology circles.

Noting that the Whole U.S. is in Danger of Being on the Wrong Side of 
Digital Divide-our communications systems are increasingly surpassed by 
country after country- the summit was awash with still even more 
stories of communities taking their communication futures into their 
own hands.
  Wireless internet is still a rapidly growing technology. Our techie 
friends are still working hard to make it more reliable, easier to use 
and maintain, and more flexible for all sorts of applications and 
terrains.  While some developers on the ground are working on goodies 
like developing better antennas, several participants are involved in 
projects that promote local, site-specific content geared toward 
community use such as interactive descriptions of murals and altars in 
San Diego’s historic and radical Chicano Park. “WIFI Dog” is one such 
tool that generated a lot of excitement in the crowd because it make it 
easy to develop and maintain local content.
Sustainability -  Community Wireless Moves Closer to Municipal Wireless.
Gone are the days when Community Wireless meant exclusively a bunch of 
friends throwing up a network in their backyard.  Much of Summit 
discussion was devoted to Muni-Wireless.  Cities big and small, urban 
and rural areas, state-side and outside are finding that they can build 
their own state-of-the-art communications systems that are “revenue 
neutral”-  meaning the money spent on building and maintaining their 
network is made up for by what they save in better communication.  The 
bonus is that municipal systems can become the backbone for other 
communication projects in the community.  This makes muni-wireless “a 
no-brainer.”
One speaker, Jonathan Baltin, gave an example of what it would cost for 
Atlanta, GA to put in a muni-wireless network.  It would cost 
$25,000,000 for the city to hook up every citizen in Atlanta with 
wireless.  Today, those with internet service in Atlanta pay 
$125,000,000 for it, but, Baltin says, every dollar spent locally can 
roll over 7 times.  So putting in muni-network is like investing 
$750,000,000 in the local economy of Atlanta.

  The role of community in determining their communication destiny 
today, may mean building their own networks, or creating greater 
accountability for corporate endeavors, or getting involved in the 
development of a municipal project.

Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane FEMA
Several people who are working on  or worked on communication systems 
in the Gulf region post-Hurricane-were in the house.  Lots of 
discussion is taking place in the Wireless community on ways that a 
rapid response “neighbors helping neighbors” emergency service for 
community wireless could be developed that builds on the work that is 
taking place and has taken place in the Gulf.

Political Action -- “a critical juncture within a critical juncture 
within a critical juncture.”
In the opening plenary, Robert McChesney described his view that right 
now we are at a critical juncture when radical change of communications 
is possible because:
1.  We are in a deep political crisis in our democracy.
2.  Our media system is in a  “deep severe crisis”  Professional  
journalism has collapsed.
3.  The underlying technology of communication has changed.


A critical juncture within a critical juncture the future of the 
internet.
Much on everyone’s minds is “net neutrality” - that is will the 
Internet eventually be wheedled down to become something like 
Television before there was cable- when those who owned the network got 
to decide what the content was that went over the network.

A critical juncture within a critical juncture within a critical 
juncture.
Time Warner, Cox, and the Baby  Bells tried unsuccessfully to kill muni 
and community wireless by getting laws passed in several states that 
made it difficult or illegal for people to put the “comm” in their 
communities.  Now they’re changing their tune.  The same companies who 
tried to outlaw community wireless are bidding on municipal contracts.  
Community and municipal wireless could be co-opted and enveloped by the 
big guys. who will try hard to get their foot in the door and slam it 
shut behind them.  Long before the potential for high-quality low-cost 
communication becomes within everyone’s reach, the promise of wireless 
could fade away.  Thus many groups within the media reform and 
community technology worlds are coming together to fight aggressively 
on behalf of community and municipal wireless.  We activists need to 
articulate exactly what we want from our communications systems 
irrespective of who builds them.  We need to be prepared to create 
accountability to community under a variety of  ownership-control 
schemes. State by state campaigns are being planned right now, along 
with an active plan for DC.  As always, methinks the best plan of 
action is getting out their and building your own damn community 
network.








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