Thanks to Ann Higgins for sending me an article from Government Technology, How to Make Municipal Wi-Fi Work. It’s a look at some municipal Wi-Fi networks that worked and some that didn’t. It highlights Minneapolis.

The article points out that there’s no right answer. I like someone who starts with that premise because what works in Minneapolis won’t necessarily work in International Falls – heck it doesn’t even have to work in St Paul. Each area has different providers, different needs, different politics.

What does seem to help a municipal network is a partnership between the vendors and the local government. As Ann pointed out to me – that’s exactly what the Minnesota Ultra High-Speed Broadband recommendations emphasizes, public-private partnerships.

As many readers will know in Minneapolis, the City has worked with a provider who built and maintains the network (US Internet). The City signed on as an anchor tenant; US Internet is welcome sign on residents as customers. So the network isn’t free to residents, but it’s available. Apparently 95 percent of the city is covered and all seems well. US Internet needed 10,000 subscribers to be solvent, they have 16,000, they want 30,000.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, Philadelphia took over the network in their area from Earthlink, who was not able to follow through with a municipal network for the city. Philadelphia however was able to pick up the equipment from Earthlink at bargain rates and will try to make a go of it themselves. I think it’s too early to tell how that is going for the city.

One big difference between Minneapolis and Philadelphia is that Philadelphia originally set out to provide free access to residents. Minneapolis did not. It’s tough to create a business plan on free. That’s another point in the article. “As free as cities want broadband to be, the Internet is a form of public infrastructure that requires certain assets for delivery.”

It does bring me back to discussions at the Ultra High-Speed Broadband Task Force meetings. The Role of Government was discussed a lot and there were some varying opinions – but everyone recognized the power of local governments as customers or anchor tenants.

My dad ran a software development business and I remember him saying that he never needed or wanted investors; he wanted customers who were invested in his success. I don’t know much about the situation in Philadelphia, but it seems as if in Minneapolis that the city is a customer invested in success of US Internet. As I started off saying, it won’t work everywhere – but it sure seems as if that’s the best case scenario.