Category: North Carolina

Chapel Hill Launches Wi-Fi Pilot Project

Chapel Hill WiFi MapThe Town email newsletter “Chapel Hill eNews’ just announced WiFi pilot will be at the following locations.

(1.) U.S. Post Office, 179 E. Franklin St.
(2.) Old Town Hall (IFC Shelter), 100 W. Rosemary St.
(3.) Town Parking Lot 5, 108 Church St.
(4.) Hargraves Center, 216 N. Roberson St.
(5.) Chapel Hill-Orange County Visitors Bureau, 501 W. Franklin St.
(6.) 411 West Restaurant, 411 W. Franklin St.

Here is the whole announcement:

4. Chapel Hill Launches Wi-Fi Pilot Project

The Town of Chapel Hill this Friday will activate six Wi-Fi hotspots in the downtown area, giving the public free access to the internet along much of Franklin Street.

The provision of wireless internet service to citizens has ranked as a top priority goal for the Town Council. The launching of wireless hotspots in downtown is considered a pilot project and a step forward toward this goal. The hotspots, which show up on wireless devices as “TOWNofCH-WiFi,” are located at the following (see map at www.townofchapelhill.org/DocumentView.asp?DID=1904):

(1.) U.S. Post Office, 179 E. Franklin St.
(2.) Old Town Hall (IFC Shelter), 100 W. Rosemary St.
(3.) Town Parking Lot 5, 108 Church St.
(4.) Hargraves Center, 216 N. Roberson St.
(5.) Chapel Hill-Orange County Visitors Bureau, 501 W. Franklin St.
(6.) 411 West Restaurant, 411 W. Franklin St.

Bob Avery, information technology director, said users within 300 feet of a hotspot should be able to connect, although the ability to connect will depend on the capability of the user’s device and the amount of obstructions between the user and the antenna. For a street level user, trees, buses, trucks and buildings will all reduce the quality of the connection signal.

The Town will soon provide information to the public by website, media and signage to help promote the hotspots and explain how they may be used. More information will be provided at the homepage of http://www.townofchapelhill.org.

The hotspots have been installed using Clearwire modems. These are attached to standard Wi-Fi access points with high gain antenna to provide the signal for public use.

The Town will not provide direct user support but does hope to be able to respond to and resolve outages or other service problems as they occur. To report comments and problems, please contact the Town at wifi@townofchapelhill.org.

My View on WiFi in Chapel Hill News

A short opinion piece I wrote appears on the front page of todays Chapel Hill News. Its called Wi-Fi for the People. Its about my recent efforts to bring public WiFi to Chapel Hill, the new WiFi pilot project slated to start September 1, and the Chapel Hill Wireless Tailgate Parties.

In the article I reference two Orange Politics posts I wrote. Chapel Hill WiFi Pilot needs different Hotspots and Where is the Wifi?. A big thank you to the Chapel Hill News and Mark Schultz for agreeing to publish My View. Its wonderful when our local paper helps citizens learn about important new resources in town. Even better when they help encourage us to help our town improve them.

Stay tuned for more info about the Chapel Hill Wireless Tailgate Parties…

MuniWireless blogs about Wireless in Chapel Hill

Carol Ellison over at MuniWireless.com has written a post called Turning infrastructures into true community networks. Its about our work in Chapel Hill to bring attention to new public wifi hotspots. Hopefully on September 1 we will have five new public WiFi hotspots sponsored by the Town of Chapel Hill.

The post also mentions me and Orange Politics. Pretty cool. 🙂 Plus the Chapel Hill Wireless Tailgate parties. These are events at each hotspot I plan on holding. More info to come.

Thanks Carol and MuniWireless.com!

Share the Chapel Hill Wireless Map

April/May of last year (2006) I created the WordPress blog and Google Maps mash up Chapel Hill Wireless. The goal was to help people find wireless hotspots in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, North Carolina. Since then Anton created Durham Wireless and Zach created Asheville Wireless. Plus lots of other things have happened. Now we are on the cusp of the first Town of Chapel Hill public WiFi pilot project. I believe this is only the tip of the iceberg. Public WiFi is just the beginning.

But today I added all the locations I had on ChapelHillWireless.org in a new Google Map. You can go to this Google map page, click on share this link, and copy the code to embed it on your site. Hopefully this will be a good way to spread this valuable info.

Now that editing this map is super easy I plan on adding lots more info to the little pop up box. Maybe even photos and video. 🙂

View Larger Map

If you misplace this post you can always find it on a page linked at the top of the site.
http://www.yesh.com/b2/chapel-hill-wifi/

Note: WiFi hotspots on the UNC campus are not included on this map. Those hotspots are not open to the general public. (People not directly affiliated with UNC) When I find a map of WiFi on campus I’ll blog about it.

Orange County, NC Elections Maps

Over on Orange Politics Ruby has posted a entry with links to some amazing Google Maps.
Southern Orange County NC Election Info Map

Last week I created a Google map of all of the candidates in Orange County in this year’s municipal and school board races. Now excellent electoral map maker Damon Seils has added two very helpful resources: a map of every polling site in the county, and another map of the voting precincts. All of these maps will be permanently available on the election info page: orangepolitics.org/elections-2007

This is going to be so useful to so many people. I’ve wanted to know exactly where the local precincts are. Google Maps rock! Overlaying several different kinds of data with Geo info can tell so much. I want to thank Damon Seils and B. Hammill for all their work on this! Also thank you Ruby for putting this out there for people to use. She has lots of other good ideas for maps too.

Now what I would like to see is to see is candidates overlayed with a map showing the average density and average income of each precinct.

Clap, Clap, Clap!

(Map Legend: Flags = poling places, Orange Boxes w/White lines = precincts, purple pins = Carrboro Candidates homes, yellow pins = School Board Candidates homes, blue pins = Chapel Hill Candidates homes)

Support the 'Community Broadband Act of 2007'

Yeah FreePress! I just got this Action Alert email. I’ll repost it here in it entirety. This is a really good action item. We need to support the new federal bill BEFORE the new study of HB1587 is done. If this new Federal bill passes HB1587 may become obsolete and maybe illegal!

Dear Brian,

Community Internet is safe for now in North Carolina. Help us protect the Internet for everyone:

Support the ‘Community Broadband Act of 2007’

The people of North Carolina scored a huge victory this week when HB 1587, the anti-municipal broadband bill, was derailed until 2009.

This bad bill — written by AT&T and Time Warner — would have eliminated the ability of cities and towns to build high-speed broadband networks to connect communities that have been overlooked by these phone and cable giants.

This bill will not be acted on until after a “study committee” report in 2009. At that time, the bill could still be voted on depending on the committee’s recommendations.

You can help make sure that doesn’t happen. Urge your members of Congress to support a bill that allows towns and cities to offer an Internet alternative. Support the “Community Broadband Act of 2007”:

ACT NOW: Internet for Everyone in North Carolina

Earlier this week, the bipartisan Community Broadband Act of 2007 was introduced in the Senate. The bill would ensure that states cannot prevent local governments from providing broadband networks to their residents and businesses.

This important bill would not only stop the bad bill in North Carolina, it would prevent Internet monopolies from attempting to stifle municipal broadband in other states.

North Carolina has fallen behind other states in high-speed Internet access. According to FCC data, the state ranks 41st in the nation in high-speed broadband adoption. In broadband growth rate, North Carolina ranks 47th.

Help bring the benefits of high-speed Internet access to your state — and all Americans. Tell your legislators in Washington to support the Community Broadband Act of 2007:

ACT NOW: Support the Community Broadband Act of 2007

Defeating HB 1587 is a huge accomplishment, but it may have little meaning if we don’t protect the rights of cities and towns to offer broadband and new technologies to their citizens. Please take action today to help connect more people in North Carolina.

Thanks for all you do,

Ira Horowitz
Online Community Organizer
Free Press
www.freepress.net

1. Learn more about the Community Broadband Act of 2007: www.freepress.net/press/release.php?id=258

2. Other cities and towns are taking action to bring broadband to their residents. Learn more at: www.freepress.net/communityinternet

3. Take Action to support Public Access TV in North Carolina. Urge your state representative to support community media bill S. 1068: http://action.freepress.net/campaign/nc_peg

4. Read Shooting the Messenger, a Free Press report dispelling myths about broadband in America: www.freepress.net/docs/shooting_the_messenger.pdf
[PDF]

I don’t usually post entire action emails, I get A LOT of them, but this one is so important to NC and has lots of good info and links. That PDF called ‘Shooting the Messenger’ has really important info. It describes just how companies like AT&T and Time Warner operate. It is why we must work hard.

Join NC Public Broadband List

Not long after I learned about HB1587, the bad NC House bill, I started a Google Group called NC Public Broadband. Its a email list with the goal of keeping people in the loop about what’s going on in the fight to protect community broadband. Its mainly an announce list but you can respond to emails. We can also upload files to share. Like a PDF of legislation or an Excel Spreadsheet of Legislative contact info.

Our ‘victory’ against HB1587 is a short lived one. Its is but one battle in a long war with “Goliath and all his cousins”. (As the Mayor Bruce Rose of Wilson, NC put it so succinctly.) I cringe at using a war analogy because of its seriousness but it is apt. Major telecommunications companies are spending a lot of money on lawyers and lobbyist to prevent the public from owning their own infrastructure. Through out the Nation they are using dishonest tactics, like making compromises in legislation then turning around and suing local governments. We can do something about this. How? By using the very resources they would take away from us. The Internet and all its tools.

I hope that this list will support the creation of a grassroots community that will monitor legislation, promote the creation of public broadband projects, and help us learn from one another.

So if you live in North Carolina and care about public access to the Internet please subscribe. (FYI – You need a Google Account) If you need help joining please contact me.

City of Greensboro Opposes HB1587

Last night the Greensboro City council passed a resolution opposing HB1587. That brings the count of communities opposing HB1587 to seven nine. The others are the City of Wilson, City of Fayetteville, City of Rocky Mount, Town of Carrboro, Town of Chapel Hill, Polk County, City of Monroe, and Rockingham County. There are also several entities that have opposed this bill such as the Rocky Mount Chamber of Commerce and Fayetteville Public Works Commission.

Here is one of my favorite WHEREAS in the resolution from the City of Greensboro:

WHEREAS, the re-combining of telecommunications companies (such as AT&T and the “baby Bells”) continues to result in planned layoffs, the inability to meet the demands of new and re-locating businesses for true high-speed broadband results in such businesses locating elsewhere, and the fact that there are telecommunications designers and equipment manufacturers and suppliers located in North Carolina who will be negatively impacted if local government is not allowed to provide needed communications services mean that North Carolina will stand to lose more jobs by not investing in top-quality broadband infrastructure than it will lose due to government provision of such services.

You can find a copy of the City of Greensboro resolution here. [doc]