San Jose Partners for Downtown WiFi Expansion

After years of embarrassing missteps, the city of San Jose plans to yet again announce a new, state-of-the-art WiFi system that will be free to the public. For a city that likes to call itself the Capital of Silicon Valley, the announcement, which could happen any day now, is as much about providing a public service as it is an attempt to restore a reputation that many say has moved north and now belongs to Mountain View.

While San Francisco and other large cities have implemented WiFi initiatives with some success, San Jose, like many other municipalities in Santa Clara County, came up short in its initial public offerings. Meanwhile, Mountain View, with its Google-provided WiFii, has become a model for cities seeking to bathe their citizenry in bandwidth.

“Google’s WiFi in Mountain View is kind of the 800-pound gorilla in terms of that stuff,” says Vijay Sammeta, San Jose’s chief information officer. Competition between San Jose and Mountain View over Silicon Valley bragging rights is nothing new. San Jose won a bidding war with Mountain View in 1984 to become home to the region’s technology museum and contributed $50 million in redevelopment funds to build The Tech. Mountain View went ahead and built the Computer History Museum.

The search giant’s setup is so solid that even the Mountain View Public Library relies on the company’s network to provide visitors with Internet.

“We don’t offer our own stand-alone WiFi service at all, so we rely on Google to provide that service,” says Paul Sims, the library’s tech supervisor.

“[People] take it for granted. They utilize the service—it’s very well used. When there’s an outage or a problem, we hear about it. We offer a wired network as well in the library but few people use that. Most people just connect to the WiFi.”

Sammeta, who was promoted to San Jose’s CIO post last spring, is the point man on the city’s new project. His ambitious plan, he says, is to make municipal wireless a reality in downtown that won’t be “just another” WiFi network.

Mostly sidestepping bureaucracy by tentatively agreeing to put a modest amount of skin in the game—the city plans to cover roughly $94,000 in costs of new equipment and infrastructure—Sammeta is brokering a partnership with two highly regarded wireless companies. The city expects to join with SmartWAVE, which is located in Suwanee, Ga., and Sunnyvale-based Ruckus Wireless. SmartWAVE was responsible for integrating WiFi in tech-savvy SXSW hometown Austin, Texas, among other cities and institutions.

“They’re one of the best in the country,” says David Callisch, vice president of marketing for Ruckus Wireless, of SmartWAVE. “They’re experts at building high-speed WiFi public access networks. What they bring to the table is that they help San Jose’s architects tune the network so that it will perform properly.”

Ruckus Wireless brings the equipment to run the network, including access points. The company successfully supplied Seoul, South Korea, with what is said to be the world’s fastest municipal 802.11n network, which is the technical term for the latest and greatest version of WiFi. Ruckus’ patented technology is designed to outwit bandwidth blockage and amplify signal strength to where it’s needed most—two crucial factors in a municipal wireless system’s success.

“Everybody gets on the WiFi network, and the more people you get on the network, the worse the performance gets,” Callisch says. “It’s also subject to interference. WiFi is getting increasingly noisy because of all the access points out there. Our technology mitigates that noise. We have a special antenna system to shoot the signal like a lighthouse. We’re able to focus that WiFi energy towards where it’s needed.”

To get the ball rolling on the project, which is still being negotiated, Sammeta first posted a competitive solicitation. “Not being a cash-rich city, it became an opportunity for us to try and see if there was a partnership deal out there,” he says. “We found SmartWAVE, who went and found Ruckus and put together a package that was compelling. It expanded the boundaries of downtown WiFi and really shot for a Silicon Valley experience.”

Going back several years, though, that experience hasn’t been harmonious.

In the summer of 2004, Global Netoptex, Inc. deployed Internet access points around Plaza de Cesar Chavez, the Fairmont Hotel and San Pedro Square to sponsor San Jose’s first public wireless network. Ron Gonzales, mayor at the time, lauded the effort. “We want people to know they are in the Capital of Silicon Valley when they are in downtown San Jose,” he said.

But the WiFi service was so marginal that the program was ruled obsolete before Gonzales left office two years later. Global Netoptex is now defunct.

In 2006, Mountain Viewbased MetroFi stepped in and bestowed its own wireless network system to San Jose. The company first experimented with network coverage in Cupertino and Sunnyvale, focusing on a subscription-only model for residents. Soon thereafter, MetroFi changed its business model and decided to open up the networks to include an ad-supported cost-free option as well as the previously available $20 per month plan.

Unfortunately, the advertisement income MetroFi was counting on never materialized. In 2008, the company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy and tried desperately to liquidate its hardware assets. MetroFi reportedly hit up the city of San Jose for $60,000 in exchange for the downtown infrastructure. San Jose turned down the offer and, shortly thereafter, MetroFi ceased to exist.

Learning from the missteps of MetroFi, Sammeta and the companies working on the current project decided to make the new network free instead of relying on ads and subscriptions. “Ads don’t really work,” Sammeta says. “This is one of those things where municipal WiFi models have boomed and busted before.”

City Councilmember Sam Liccardo, whose district includes downtown, hinted at the WiFi project last month in an op-ed piece. The councilman openly admits his dismay at how the so-called Capital of Silicon Valley has lost its luster as a place for entrepreneurship.

“The Googles and the Facebooks have gobbled up much of the best talent,” Liccardo says. “We recognize that the economy of the valley really depends on innovation.”

Liccardo hopes the wireless initiative will help lure more businesses like NextSpace and TechShop, which specialize in offering office space for startups.

In addition to unshackling laptops from coffee-shop tables, the new WiFi project will provide a stronger backbone for wireless-dependent city services such as digital pay-to-park signage and parking meters, Sammeta says. But there is a cost.

In return for the technology provided by SmartWAVE and Ruckus, San Jose will act as a guinea pig as the companies work out the wireless kinks.

“Part of the partnership is to provide them with a closer location that allows them to test their software and firmware updates. A little sandbox environment, if you will,” Sammeta says. “That’s in trade for them giving us a sweetheart deal. But instead of pointing to a map of South Korea when selling potential clients on its networking prowess, Ruckus can tell them to take a drive down southbound 280.”

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