Unwired and Unloved

[August 29th, 2007]

More than a year into Portland’s experiment with free wireless Internet, the digital divide holds firm. Northeast Portlanders remain underserved by free pornography, email scams and the Obama Girl’s uplifting message of…hope.

The divide is clear. It runs north of Interstate 84 and east of North Portsmouth Avenue—an area served by Pacific Power, PacifiCorp’s local subsidiary.

After months of negotiations, the utility and the wi-fi provider, MetroFi, have failed to strike a deal for how much to charge MetroFi for drawing power to run its system. This has effectively halted the free network’s expansion into the poorer neighborhoods that were supposed to benefit from the free wi-fi. MetroFi and Portland General Electric, which powers portions of the city not covered by Pacific Power, already have struck a deal granting MetroFi discounted rates. So, on PGE’s turf, wi-fi has spread downtown and as far east as Southeast 82nd Avenue.

Pacific Power, however, has yet to offer a rate that MetroFi can live with. The utility’s spokeswoman, Jan Mitchell, says MetroFi has yet to sign off on a draft agreement.

MetroFi spokeswoman Denise Graab didn’t return repeated calls.

Though public investment in the network is nil, the city’s patience is limited.

“If we need to step in and have the parties come to an agreement, that is someplace we might go,” says Brendan Finn, Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s chief of staff.

That may not be possible.

During MetroFi’s negotiation with PGE last year, the city’s role was “more of bystander,” according to another city official.

MetroFi says its network is 20 percent complete. The city accepts the company’s word that it’s on track to be 95 percent complete by the end of next year. When the deal was announced in April 2006, the network was supposed to cover the whole city within a year or two—so, at best, it’ll be eight months late.

If MetroFi fails, Finn says, Portland will turn elsewhere—perhaps to nonprofit groups like Personal Telco or Free Geek—to bring high-speed Internet to people who can’t afford to buy it.

According to state and national surveys, cost is a major barrier to Internet access. Another barrier, often overlooked, is utter indifference to what the Web has to offer. (You mean, you haven’t read my blog?)

Where it is up and running, in places such as the Pearl and Lloyd Center areas, MetroFi’s free service has been panned.

“Frankly, I’ve given them lots of slack,” says Sam Churchill, who runs the blog dailywireless.org from Northwest Portland, and spoke to MetroFi CEO Chuck Haas about the Pacific Power problem in May. “Christ…something should be happening, and all I hear are stories about what a piece of shit MetroFi is.”

City officials urge patience.

A few months is “not very much time in the grand scheme of things,” says Logan Kleier, the city’s wi-fi manager (News Q&A, WW , March 28, 2007). “Neither the city nor MetroFi can change the laws of physics.”

Even if MetroFi breaks into Pacific Power’s territory, other problems could delay the network’s expansion: MetroFi’s cash flow, for instance.

The company relies on ad revenue and optional monthly subscriptions.

Business Week reported earlier this month that MetroFi was pushing Portland to subscribe to its network. Kleier says that about six months ago, the company asked him to buy more network subscriptions than the city “could possibly afford.”

“We said our contract didn’t have any commitments. And that was the end of that discussion,” Kleier says.

Portland did buy one thing from MetroFi: hype.

Announcing the city’s selection of MetroFi in April 2006, Commissioner Saltzman gushed: “This partnership…represents a monumental effort to bridge the digital divide.” Mayor Tom Potter praised the network’s benefits to public safety and the “streamlining” of city services, which hasn’t happened.

“It’s time for the rational people, the professionals, to come in and take this over, because the politicians know jack. They were promising things the technology couldn’t do, and a business model no one was going to get into,” says Craig Settles, an Oakland-based wireless consultant. “As a result, what we have now is a bunch of people who say, ‘If we can’t get it for free, we don’t want it.’ Like a kid in the sandbox.”

But the city has made a commitment to free wi-fi. Until the network is complete, Portland is breaking its promise—that even a girl from Northeast Killingsworth Street can grow up to dance for a presidential candidate on YouTube.