Battle for Wi-Fi Space

After a months long feud between the city of Ketchum and the local newspaper, the city of has finally launched a municipal Wi-Fi system to deliver broadband access to downtown businesses.

Free wireless Internet access was originally going to be sponsored by the city with tax dollars, until local businesses began complaining about the prospect of competing with the city, said Heidi Dohse, a consultant on the project.

Once the capital costs were covered, the city was considering selling sponsorship of the network to a local advertiser to cover operating costs. But the local newspaper, the Idaho Mountain Express, thought this plan would disrupt its advertising revenue.
“If the project sold any advertising it would be competing with the newspaper,” Dohse said. “Then, Cox Communications thought the city getting in business of broadband would be competing with them.”  
The Mountain Express stated the risk to its business in a March 30 editorial which objected to the entire Wi-Fi project:
“The company that owns this newspaper and other valley media companies sell Internet advertising. Yet, the city would use tax dollars not only to compete with Cox, Qwest, Skylan and cell phone companies, but with smaller local media companies. And, unlike those companies, the city would face no market risk.
“The city should not use scarce tax resources to compete with established local businesses that pay the very taxes that would be used against them.”
But the need for downtown Wi-Fi still existed, with lots of support from community businesses and residents, Dohse said.
“Our number one priority was to provide access to visitors and tourists,” she said. “It helps with economic development. If you feel like you can check in with the office, you feel like you can take an extra day.”
After 10 months of going back and forth over how to pay for it, Dohse finally reached a solution. Instead of making municipal Wi-Fi a city project, she established a nonprofit to manage the network.
New York investment bank Allen and Co. made a donation to cover installation, labor and operating costs for the first year.
“People are happy now because it’s not taxpayer dollars,” Dohse said.
Dohse said they will continue to look for sponsors located outside Sun Valley to continue with the network.
“We may need to limit bandwidth, but it will always be free,” she said. “We have the next 11 months to build up an account to cover 2009.”
Since the initial capital costs are already taken care of, the operating cost is only about $8,000 a month – not something so burdensome that it can’t be done, Dohse said.  
But Dohse didn’t do it alone. Dohse, who co-owns Creative Ideas Consulting, handled the technical side of things, while her business partner Amy Stubbs worked on marketing the idea. They worked with Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall and the city council, and Syringa Networks helped get the city wired.  
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To write the author of this article, write eddie.kovsky@idahobusiness.net