Scott Anderson sat at his girlfriend’s laptop computer; frustrated with the wireless home network he was attempting to set up. The couple had just purchased cable Internet for their apartment, but the installation was proving problematic. Instead of finding his wireless router, her laptop found tens of others, including one named Freenet.
“I’ve seen these guys around town, but I have no clue what they are about.” said Anderson.
Not everyone can afford the Internet like Anderson. A Lawrence non-profit is seeing to it that just because someone cannot afford Internet service they do not have to suffer a cost to their future. Lawrence Freenet has worked since 2005 to provide Internet to the city of Lawrence, regardless of income. Approximately 80 other communities in the country offer a similar service.
Freenet began offering service in the middle of 2005 on a voluntary pay basis. Users could choose to pay $15 a month or they could access the service for free.
“What we found out is that building a wireless network is expensive,” said Matthew Del Vacchio, Director of Internal Operations at Lawrence Freenet. “It’s very expensive, actually.”
Freenet found two options that would allow it to pay the bills and still serve the community. One option was to switch to an ad based model. Users would have a banner with ads constantly on their browser screen while using the free Internet network. Metrofi in San Francisco pioneered this method of Internet delivery.
“There’s a lot of technology that goes into displaying the ad and what allows people on.” said Del Vacchio. “We found out that that just wasn’t a realistic goal.”
Facing this technological roadblock, Freenet opted to go a new way. They switched to a model where those who can pay, pay for those who cannot.
“Our goal is for one out of every ten users is on for free.” said Del Vacchio.
Free users are qualified by income and number of dependants.
“We give them a free Internet account. If they don’t have a computer, we give them a computer. If they don’t know how to use it, we teach them how to use it.” said Del Vacchio.
The computers Freenet provides are donated by the community. Volunteers come in on Saturdays and cleanout and update donated computers to be sent to deserving families. Freenet accepts any used computer, even if it is old or will not even start. They take apart those computers that are too far gone and use the parts to make better machines.
Freenet intends to expand and get more city support. So far the city has allowed the company to put its nodes and base stations on city property. While being appreciative of what the city has done so far, Freenet hopes in the future they will do more. Del Vacchio hopes the city will help fund the service by buying up a large chunk of the service and becoming an “anchor tenant.” The case is tough to plead to the city since there is not a working model to show that success is a possibility.
“I respect their reservation in it and I hope that as our technology improves and the service improves and it starts to become more clear to the municipalities what different advantages are to using a wireless network that they’ll give us a try as an anchor tenant.” said Del Vacchio.
Should Freenet secure a deal with the city, Del Vacchio anticipates having a much easier time selling the project to potential investors. The benefits to the city from Del Vacchio’s perspective are great. Freenet and the Lawrence Police Department are collaborating on a test project to provide wireless Internet to police cars so officers can do paperwork from their vehicles from anywhere in the city.
Beyond the police department, potential uses include city employees such as building inspectors who work outside the office, wireless transmitters to read water meters, and even reading parking meters wirelessly from City Hall.
“Our ultimate goal is to drive the price of data to zero.” said Del Vacchio. “We believe that access to the Internet should be free.”
In order to access the service a user need only register with Freenet and login to the nearest Freenet wireless node. Home users only have to login once with their special wireless router, while laptop users must login once a day. The wireless nodes are located all around town attached to streetlights and traffic signals. Information goes from the wireless nodes to base stations located atop large city structures such as water towers and City Hall. The last stop on the data’s tour of Lawrence is the Freenet headquarters, where it is sent off to the Internet and the return data makes its way along the same path back to the user. All of this takes place in a fraction of a second.
“To explain it simply, it’s like having a bunch of Linksys routers set up, but it’s a lot more powerful and a lot more sophisticated, but the technology is the same.” said Del Vecchio.
The distance from a wireless node dictates the manner in which a user can access the network. A person living within 200 feet of a node can use the internal antenna of any wireless device they may have, such as a laptop. The signal gets weaker over distance and these devices have a hard time connecting further than that. From 150 feet and further, Freenet recommends that users purchase a wireless modem from them. These modems are far more powerful than anything for sale from a normal vender and will allow users to have a quality experience from up to 1,000 feet.
“The ultimate goal is to put up enough radios that you wouldn’t need one of the routers anywhere.” said Del Vecchio.
Paying users have a $20 monthly fee, but 10 percent of that bill can be filled as a tax deduction since Freenet is a non-profit company. On top of the $20 monthly fee, a paying user living beyond 150 feet from a node will have to install a wireless modem. Various wireless routers can be purchased for between $121 and $199 or the modems can be rented for between $7 and $11 a month, depending on the model of modem.
The additional cost of the wireless modems has turned some away. Karla Stone lives just far enough away from the nearest wireless node on 6th Street to have trouble connecting to the Freenet network with just her laptop’s wireless card.
“It was slow and that was pretty much what did it.” said Stone.
Her distance from the nearest node would require her to rent or purchase a wireless modem. She went back to using Sunflower Broadband’s cable Internet service instead, since she already owned a cable modem and the cost of renting the new equipment would negate the saving she had hoped for.
“It seems like a good idea, it’s just not there yet.” said Stone.
The cost of the new equipment did not deter Scott Anderson back on 15th Street, his frustration had built to the point of desperation.
“I wish I had known more about this before I signed up for service.” Said Anderson. “Now I’ve already spent $80 on a cable modem and so I am kind of stuck with it. But it may be worth switching anyway.”