Finally, We Can Get Every Student and School Online - For Cheap

Many decades have had their “Moonshots.” They're The Big ideas. Typically, they’re supremely-expensive, societally-challenging, disruptive projects that go down in history as lasting achievements. In the 1930’s it was the New Deal. In the 40’s, it was victory in World War II. In the 1950’s it was the Interstate Highway System. In the 60’s it was, well, the Moonshot (and Civil Rights).

These "Moonshot" projects are costly, but necessary. They’re transformative, and frequently democratic in nature. They are national quests that are underwritten by the Federal government because either the private sector is not equipped to – or willing to – deliver. Yes, America is a capitalist nation, no doubt. We prize private ownership and initiative, but there are things that even the market cannot do. Not on a big level anyway.

The challenge of our age, the “Moonshot,” if you please, is national, affordable, quality connectivity. Everywhere, 24/7. Call it what you will – a national, low or no cost Wi-Fi system, Municipal Internet, whatever. 

Internet access is not a civil right, not yet anyway, but a good education is. And I really doubt that you’d be able to find any educator or parent who would not observe that there is no way any student can attain a quality education in 2014 without ready, constant, available broadband access. It’s a no brainer. The entire world is online and competing furiously on an international basis. My own students are well aware that their future competitors are not only in nearby schools but in places like Shanghai and Singapore as well. As a nation, we’re long overdue in bringing free, fast Internet into our public schools. This

Wireless Internet for every student in America:
It's now possible.

goal has long been part of our “Moonshot.”

If you asked any person on the street (or me as recently as two hours ago) how much it would cost to bring fast, wired and wireless (Wi-Fi) internet to every school in the nation, a lot of figures would come up. But the bottom line is, everyone – myself included – would tell you the cost would be prohibitive. Hundreds of billions of dollars, at least – maybe more. Most would probably think that it’s worthy goal, perhaps, but really, just not realistic in the near future. It seems like a huge, progressive dream, and something that, in these troubling economic times, might have to be done either incrementally or put on the back burner for more prosperous days.

Then I read an article – a blog post in this week’s Washington Post. According to the FCC and two highly respected organizations in the Ed-Tech world, a price tag has been revealed. For this estimation, this “ballpark figure,” every school in the United States could be hooked up to broadband access, wired and wireless. And we’re not talking about the kind of access you get at home – we’re talking big, thick pipes dedicated to massive amounts of uploading and downloading via fiber optic connections. To do this, it would cost Congress not $400 billion, not $40 billion...just $4 billion.

When I read the estimation, I gasped. It can’t be that inexpensive. To bring wireless access to every public school in America…that’s just huge. Every school means every school, from the mega-high schools of busy New York City to the rural hamlets of Tennessee…sea to shining sea…etc.  

The implications of such a plan would be revolutionary to say the least. And for this price tag – really the amount that the Federal government probably spends on toilet paper yearly – it’s worth it. We have spent more than a trillion dollars in Iraq since 2003. A trillion dollars! To kill people and break things in a faraway land! And what have we got for our trillion dollars? Iraq is falling apart, Al Qaida’s still on the loose, our allies aren’t any more secure and we have tens of thousands of disabled vets to care for. Why don’t we take just a fraction of such an expenditure and invest it in our children and our communities?

We can do this. We must do this. We can still do great things, but now, apparently, we can achieve greatness with technologies partially bought at places like Radio Shack and The Home Depot. The private sector won’t do it; it’s had a decade to step up to the challenge of bringing affordable and widespread web access to our schools. Instead, our tech companies are focused on what all companies focus on: profits, mergers and acquisitions. That doesn’t make them bad, but it does make them incapable of acting on this level for the public interest.

We can do this. Who’s with me?

Finally, The Possibility of Free, Widespread Wi-Fi: The Signs Are Everywhere

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has brought the dream of a nearly zero-cost (to taxpayers) wireless New York City closer than ever with a brilliant plan. Admittedly first proposed in the last administration, if successful the proposal will enjoin a private-public partnership system that will install tens of thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots around the city. Access will be free and unlimited, and here’s the kicker – it will be, for the most part, privately funded, and gladly so.

How do they plan to do it? The strategy is two-fold. First, the Wi-Fi routers will be placed on city property that has been leased to advertisers. Billboards, old telephone booths, subway ads, etc. Year after year private advertisers pay millions of dollars to get their names up in public access areas and central commons. Previously, the deal was, pay the city and for a limited time your sign goes up. Signs are expensive too, especially ones that are illuminated. Well, now, the updated deal will be, buy public advertising space and along with your message, your company will be required to purchase and hang up one or two expertly camouflaged Wi-Fi routers to create a local wireless cloud. Equipment prices have plummeted to such lows that, frankly, the system’s costs will be marginal – practically built-in. There will be no huge increases in rates to these advertising firms. The actual network would presumably be run by the city; again, supported by, say, a small additional fee to be paid by advertisers. The actual public network would be ad-free. And once the infrastructure is up and running, additional costs to advertisers will drop to near zero.

Overall, a great idea for Jersey; but there's more. Another source of revenue that could create an instant, funded and installed Wi-Fi network is through a small increase for illuminated sign and tower permits. If a business seeks to construct and display an illuminated sign (even on private property), for a few extra dollars the payer would fund one or two routers adjoining such signage.

Our communities, and our kids, see these every day; 

why not let them double as WiFi hotspots?

Free wifi. Widespread. Readily available. Supported (mostly) by private sources for the public good, and implanted in a ready-made infrastructure. For Jersey, the possibilities are endless. With a little bit of tweaking with the contracts for billboard and other advertisers, we can unleash a long-overdue public resource: Free Wi-Fi. Think about it. How many huge billboards do you see locally? On bridges? Along the Turnpike? Aside tall buildings? How many old phone booths dot our towns and cities? In Newark there must be hundreds of sites, just waiting to be transformed to beacons on the Information Superhighway.

Using this arrangement, Wi-Fi clouds could be quickly established in our cities. Newark, Camden, Jersey City, Union City, New Brunswick…even smaller communities with dense, commercial downtown areas like Kearney, Princeton, Irvington and Belleville would benefit.

Okay, we’ve got this great idea. It’s already beginning to work for other cities. This idea is way outside the box, but it is sure to work, helping to light up our cities in the 21^st century like they were illuminated in the 20^th.

Our effort must be centered on the State Legislature. That is the only statewide authority capable of passing the laws to make this plan possible.

Let’s do this. Let’s have the hard liquor and cigarette advertisers in our cities bring fast, free Internet to our kids. Let’s take those bright signs along Route 1 and bring Internet to motorists and local shoppers. This plan is a no brainer. Do we dare to innovate? Can we still do great things? I believe we can.

China's Newark Lights the Way: Wuxi Adopts Free WiFi

Located right outside of booming Shanghai is, at least in my opinion, the closest community to being “Newark’s Twin” in rising China: Wuxi. The city of Wuxi’s population is considerably larger than the Brick City, but its relationship with its metropolitan neighbor is akin to Newark’s with New York. As with Newark, so much of the smaller Chinese city’s economic, cultural and educational links are connected with the larger, being Shanghai. Again as with Newark and New York, both Chinese cities are not only geographically proximate but also connected through a complex web of rail and road links. Every day hundreds of thousands pass through both cities en route for greater employment and financial opportunities.

The government of Wuxi isn’t under any illusions; it’s not going to surpass Shanghai and doesn’t seek to. Instead, it actively works to coordinate its growth and economic development with its larger neighbor. Wuxi has to do this, because Shanghai is quickly becoming the “New York City” of not only China but all of East Asia. Shanghai, within this generation, could very well wind up to be the urban pivot that the entire Pacific Rim swings upon.

Again, the administrators of Wuxi know this. They’re counting on it. They know that their close neighbor is investing billions of U.S. dollars in critical infrastructural improvements, such as modern highways, increased public transportation, and especially communications systems. So just last month, Wuxi made a big decision, a decision that Newark desperately needs to make and implement within the very near future, if the Brick City is serious about its growth, safety and employment potential. Wuxi has decided to establish its own “wireless cloud,” it’s own urban Wi-Fi system that will cover nearly every square foot of the city.

Ten years ago this would have been a colossal prospect for any city or town, anywhere. Some cities, like Philadelphia, experimented with the prospect, called “Municipal Wi-Fi.” But they found that the equipment was extremely expensive, fragile, and with limited geographical range and benefit. Then, over the past decade, time and the electronic marketplace exercised their magic and now what was expensive yesterday is more or less peanuts today. In short, a $350 Internet router from 2003 can be had for $25 or $30 in 2013, with the contemporary equivalent being better, more durable, with dramatically wider range capabilities.

Wuxi’s leaders were aware of these market changes, and have acted accordingly. Over the next year and a half, they’ve pledged and budgeted, in an ambitious private-public partnership, to “light up” the city with 40,000 Wi-Fi hotspots. Yes, you read that right; not 4,000…but 40,000!

Yesteryear’s equivalent of the “Moon Shot” is this year’s parallel of paving a road, or something like that. Regardless of whatever lame way I put it, within a year or so Wuxi’s residents: young, old, rich, poor, middle-class, homeless, lost, employed, and jobless will be able to access email and the full benefits of the web, at least when they’re on the streets, trains and busses of the municipality. And here’s the kicker: it won’t cost that much money. Actually, costs will be a fraction of what they were projected even five years ago. And with the possibility of added economic development due to the network’s deployment, the new system may actually wind up quickly paying for itself.

Newark, to my knowledge, has nothing like this in its planning books. In fact, the Brick City is caught up in one of the worst crime waves of the past 25 years that threatens to erase two decades of civic progress. To make matters worse, the city’s unemployment rate continues unabated while the Federal government cuts one of its most essential benefits, food stamps. Well, if you’re going to cut food stamps, and tell a city with a huge jobless population to “get a job,” then don’t be a hypocrite:give them the means to find one. City and state officials need to get their heads out of the clouds and turn on an electronic cloud in Newark, before the city is permanently left behind as a 20th century urban backwater.

Newark citywide Wi-Fi doesn’t have to be put in place all at once to be immediately successful. As a person who lived in the city for years, and now works there, I can tell you that there are places where Wi-Fi could be rapidly installed for maximum effectiveness. Newark’s downtown core, its parks and its long, major boulevards could be “illuminated” first. Also, streets adjacent to schools and schoolyards would be included, as would busses. This would immediately better the lives of those who transit through these areas daily (like my students). Then, after six months to a year, the city’s outer zones, its residential neighborhoods and housing projects could follow.

The city leaders of Wuxi know that Wi-Fi is an urban need, like water or sewers or other utilities. A globally-connected city simply cannot exist and prosper without it. When will Newark’s leaders come to the same conclusion?