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A collection of research and case
studies relevant for LGAs looking to
implement or grow an existing Public
Wi-Fi service.
Report
Implementing Public Wi-Fi
Services for Local
Government
MAV Technology
Level 12, 60 Collins St, Melbourne 3000
© Can Stock Photo Inc. / dolgachov
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 1 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Table of Contents
Change log ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 4
Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
About this report ..................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Audience .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Licensing .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Disclaimer ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 7
Objectives ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 8
Current State .................................................................................................................................................................................. 9
Drivers for municipal authorities ..................................................................................................................................... 10
The rise of mesh networks ................................................................................................................................................. 10
Resources ................................................................................................................................................................................. 11
Survey Results .............................................................................................................................................................................. 12
Implementation approach ...................................................................................................................................................... 15
Step 1 - Why? ......................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Benefits for councils ........................................................................................................................................................ 16
Step 2 – Where? ..................................................................................................................................................................... 17
Step 3 – What? ....................................................................................................................................................................... 17
Step 4 – How and who? ...................................................................................................................................................... 18
Business model variations .................................................................................................................................................. 19
Business model details ............................................................................................................................................................. 21
Case studies .................................................................................................................................................................................. 26
South Gippsland Shire Council ........................................................................................................................................ 26
Implementation phases ................................................................................................................................................. 26
The future ............................................................................................................................................................................ 27
Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 28
East Gippsland Shire Council ............................................................................................................................................ 29
Current Situation .............................................................................................................................................................. 29
The Future ........................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 30
Goulburn Mulwaree Council ............................................................................................................................................. 30
History................................................................................................................................................................................... 31
Current state ....................................................................................................................................................................... 31
Resources ............................................................................................................................................................................ 32
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 2 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 32
City of Melbourne ................................................................................................................................................................. 32
Background ......................................................................................................................................................................... 33
EOI details ........................................................................................................................................................................... 33
Service details .................................................................................................................................................................... 34
Resources ............................................................................................................................................................................ 34
Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 34
City of Port Phillip ................................................................................................................................................................. 34
Background ......................................................................................................................................................................... 34
Plans for the future .......................................................................................................................................................... 35
Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 36
Detroit ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 36
Cass Corridor ...................................................................................................................................................................... 36
North Corktown ................................................................................................................................................................ 36
48217 neighbourhood ................................................................................................................................................... 37
Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 37
General references ........................................................................................................................................................... 37
San Francisco Bay Area ....................................................................................................................................................... 38
Silicon Valley Unwired .................................................................................................................................................... 38
Google Wi-Fi ...................................................................................................................................................................... 38
Yarra Plenty Regional Library............................................................................................................................................ 39
Technical details................................................................................................................................................................ 39
The future ............................................................................................................................................................................ 40
Take-aways ......................................................................................................................................................................... 40
A carrier perspective ................................................................................................................................................................. 41
General references ........................................................................................................................................................... 41
Telstra ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 42
Other resources ................................................................................................................................................................. 42
Optus .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 43
Vodafone .................................................................................................................................................................................. 43
Implementation Guidelines .................................................................................................................................................... 44
Legislation and Regulation ................................................................................................................................................ 44
Privacy Act ........................................................................................................................................................................... 44
Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (TIA) .................................................................... 45
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 3 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth) ......................................................................................................................... 46
ACMA .................................................................................................................................................................................... 46
Other requirements .............................................................................................................................................................. 47
Proposed changes to the access of and retention of metadata ........................................................................ 47
Terms and Conditions............................................................................................................................................................... 48
Internode standard .......................................................................................................................................................... 48
Queensland Museum ...................................................................................................................................................... 48
Brisbane City Council (BCC) .......................................................................................................................................... 49
City of Sterling (WA)........................................................................................................................................................ 49
State Library of Victoria ................................................................................................................................................. 50
Sunshine Coast Regional Council .............................................................................................................................. 50
Recommendation .................................................................................................................................................................. 50
Public Wi-Fi Architecture ......................................................................................................................................................... 52
Mesh vs Traditional WDS ................................................................................................................................................... 52
Overall systems architecture ............................................................................................................................................. 53
Municipal network architecture example .................................................................................................................... 54
Technology .............................................................................................................................................................................. 54
Design and troubleshooting ............................................................................................................................................. 58
Other considerations ........................................................................................................................................................... 58
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 60
Attachments ................................................................................................................................................................................. 60
Attachment A : Business Model variations ....................................................................................................................... 61
Attachment B : Glossary ........................................................................................................................................................... 65
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 4 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Change log
Version Date Author Summary of changes
3.0 23 Dec 14 Luke Potter – Charlie
Mac and Associates Initial draft
4.0 8 Jan 15 Luke Potter – Charlie
Mac and Associates
Included sections:
• Implementation approach
• CoPP, YPRL, Detroit and San Francisco case
studies.
• Recommendation in Terms and Conditions
section.
• Glossary
• More info on community wireless.
5.0 10 Jan 15 Luke Potter – Charlie
Mac and Associates
Included updates to sections:
• Architecture
• Glossary
• Benefits to Council
• Carrier Perspective
6.0 12 Jan 15 Luke Potter – Charlie
Mac and Associates
Complete review of document
7.0 9 Feb 15 Luke Potter – Charlie
Mac and Associates
Includes the flowing updates:
• Added diagrams
• Added high level work-plan for Implementation
Approach section.
• Added Altai to Public Wi-Fi Architecture –
Technology section.
• Made all footer references hyperlinks.
• Reference to Creative Commons licensing on
every page.
• Disclaimer at start of document.
• Overview of mesh and hub-and-spoke network
architectures in Public Wi-Fi Architecture section.
• Remove Things to Look into sections and add
content that these points refer to.
• Update Audience section.
• Other minor updates.
8.0 9 Feb 15 Luke Potter – Charlie
Mac and Associates
Updates from Denis Wilson.
9.0 18 Feb 15 Luke Potter – Charlie
Mac and Associates
Updates from Dr Ian McShane, Les Firth (Yarra Plenty
Regional Library case study) and from Mike Pearson (CoPP
case study) and other minor changes.
10.0 4 Mar 15 Luke Potter – Charlie
Mac and Associates
Minor typographical updates.
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 5 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Introduction
As Deloitte mentioned in their Value of Connectivity report of Feb 20141, ready access to the
Internet is an important ingredient in helping communities grow. Public Wi-Fi can help
create new opportunities for community engagement and collaboration, provide new
services, and as a means of encouraging people to spend more time in retail precincts. Public
Wi-Fi, if done well, can help spur on economic activity.
Successful Public Wi-Fi offerings are often based around:
• Sustainable business models. Public Wi-Fi can be sustainable if it achieves its
intended objectives. LGAs must decide specifically what they want to achieve from
implementing a Public Wi-Fi offering. Once objectives are clear, then more details of
a model Wi-Fi architecture can be explored, including coverage footprint, security
controls and technologies used. Ongoing funding is particularly important.
• Legal obligations. When Council offers any service to the community, there comes a
range of legal and regulatory obligations that need to be fulfilled. For Wi-Fi these
may include record / metadata retention, and other management controls. In
addition, public expectations about what is appropriate should be taken into account
(including censorship).
• Service level obligations. Performance of any form of access to the Internet must
support user experience. People expect content to render within a couple of seconds
or the activity they are performing may suffer. LGAs must explore factors that ensure
the performance and availability of connections to Public Wi-Fi that may include
blocking specific traffic, or bandwidth throttling or shaping. LGAs should also
consider capacity planning.
About this report
This report addresses what it takes for LGAs to successfully implement a Public Wi-Fi
offering. In doing so, this report includes details of:
• Research material related to the design, implementation, use and ongoing
management of Public Wi-Fi services;
• Case studies from across Victoria and the globe, focused on Victorian LGAs and
includes significant case studies from other sectors - both private and public;
• Details of technologies available that are relevant to local government;
• Business models that support the sustainable use of Public Wi-Fi; and
1 https://fbcdn-dragon-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/t39.2365/851546_1398036020459876_1878998841_n.pdf
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 6 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
• Policy and process for the effective management of Public Wi-Fi.
This report provides a reference for LGAs looking to understand more about how others
have implemented Public Wi-Fi solutions and seeking guidance on how they may implement
their own Public Wi-Fi offering.
Public Wi-Fi, for the purposes of this body of knowledge, is considered as Wi-Fi that is made
available to the general public. The service is usually provided free of charge (at least for a
specific time or download limit) and is not targeted to any specific group of people.
This Public Wi-Fi report was commissioned by MAV Technology2 and developed by Charlie
Mac and Associates3 over the period December 2014 through to January 2015, and being a
deliverable of the Public Wi-Fi Implementation Guidelines project.
2 http://www.lgict.net.au 3 http://www.charlie-mac.com/
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 7 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Audience
This report is intended for use by members of MAV Technology participating councils to
help them understand, plan for and implement a sustainable Public Wi-Fi service offering for
their respective communities.
This document may be shared with other parties related to MAV Technology and
participating councils for the purposes of collaborating on broader Public Wi-Fi offerings.
Licensing
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.
Disclaimer
Although the author of this report has made every effort to ensure that the information in
this report was correct at the time of publication, the author does not assume and hereby
disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or
omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other
cause.
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 8 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Objectives
The most important objectives of the Public Wi-Fi Implementation Guidelines project are to
define (listed in order of priority)4:
Objective of this report Refer to section
Community benefits including increasing foot traffic and flow on
economic benefits. In addition, why and when to implement Public
Wi-Fi is considered
Step 1 – Why? in Implementation
Approach section
Setting up a Public Wi-Fi solution, including regulatory and security
considerations
Public Wi-Fi Architecture and
Legislation and Regulation in
Implementation Guidelines section
Business models that can be employed to ensure an appropriate
exchange of value
Implementation Approach and
Business Model sections
Other objectives (in no particular order) include understanding:
• The differences between ADSL and Wi-Fi services,
• Whether LGAs can make money from Public Wi-Fi,
• Better practice management controls (including those around shaping, throttling and
security),
• Legal issues related to Public Wi-Fi,
• Mesh networks and common SSIDs used across municipalities, and
• Arguments against implementing a Public Wi-Fi service.
4 Derived during the Public Wi-Fi discussion of the LGICT meeting of 13 Nov 14
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 9 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Current State
After uncertain beginnings, Public Wi-Fi in Australia is entering a network infrastructure
investment phase, where government and telecommunication carriers are building the
infrastructure required for more widespread adoption and use of Wi-Fi. Australia lags behind
the US and Europe in the widespread availability of Public Wi-Fi5. Even though early Public
Private Partnerships to rollout and support Public Wi-Fi in the US seem to have failed, the
investment in infrastructure has provided the backbone for new and innovative Public Wi-Fi
service offerings that promise to be sustainable.
Demand for Public Wi-Fi continues to grow across Australia. According to ACMA6, over the
12 months to June 14, there were 3 million Internet users across Australia that supplement
their Internet usage with Wi-Fi service offerings (or 21% of all Internet users). This compares
with 43% in the US and 11% in the UK. Over the 5 years to June 2014, use of Wi-Fi service
offerings has increased 6 times. ACMA notes that the most important reasons for this surge
in uptake are largely driven by users looking for alternatives to:
• lessen the pressure on their 3G or 4G capped mobile data service plans;
• avoid international data roaming charges (for travellers from other countries); and
• provide more opportunities to go online (with devices that are Wi-Fi capable but are
not mobile data capable).
Internationally, Public Wi-Fi service offerings continue to grow7 - driven primarily by the
dramatic increase in mobile data consumption and telecommunication carriers looking to
offload traffic to Wi-Fi alternatives, subsequently reducing the need for 4G mobile data
infrastructure investment. A telecommunications carrier offered a small borough in London
500,000 pounds to implement Public Wi-Fi for this very reason8. Closer to home, Telstra
have introduced their Wi-Fi Nation service and Optus are investigating opportunities to enter
the Public Wi-Fi space (see A Carrier’s Perspective section for more details).
In addition to offloading mobile data traffic, telecommunications carriers are also looking to
Public Wi-Fi for delivering location based services (for example, Telefonica9) and to augment
satellite TV offerings (for example, The Cloud10). One of the greatest challenges though for
5 https://publicwifiaustralia.wordpress.com/ 6 http://www.acma.gov.au/theACMA/engage-blogs/engage-blogs/Research-snapshots/Strong-signals-growing-use-of-public-
Wi-Fi-hotspots 7 http://www.pcworld.com/article/243464/number_of_wifi_hotspots_to_quadruple_by_2015_says_study.html 8 http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/Directory/News/Free_wifi_in_Hammersmith_and_Fulham.asp 9 http://www.wballiance.com/wba/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2012/07/16_WBA-Industry-Report-2011-_Global-
Developments-in-Public-Wi-Fi-1.00.pdf 10 http://www.muniwireless.com/2011/01/27/details-about-bskyb-acquisition-of-the-cloud/
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 10 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
telecommunications providers in delivering Public Wi-Fi is getting access to infrastructure in
the right locations for mounting Access Points. This provides an opportunity for LGAs that
own infrastructure in such locations to work together with telecommunications carriers to
provision Public Wi-Fi services for their communities at low or no cost. Sometimes there is
no clear owner of infrastructure - for example, five stakeholders needed to be consulted in
installing a Wi-Fi Access Point on a light pole in Bendigo. LGAs exploring partnerships with
telecommunication carriers are cautious though. They understand that introducing Public
Wi-Fi under such a partnership may become anti-competitive and provide a carrier with
a cornered market.
Many smaller towns have a fibre networks, although it is often difficult to locate and
subsequently utilise these networks. This asset is frequently overlooked in Public Wi-Fi
design across Australia.
Drivers for municipal authorities
Municipal authorities across the globe are investing in Public Wi-Fi services to help support
the communities they serve. Some of the objectives that they are looking to achieve include:
• Closing the digital divide - for example, many homeless have smartphones and free
public Wi-Fi provides them with access to resources and knowledge on the Internet
that they would not otherwise have access to.
• Political drivers - where it makes political sense to promote the development of
Public Wi-Fi for communities. Under this premise, there is usually no consideration of
market failure.
• Avoiding being left out - LGAs are deciding to implement Public Wi-Fi to avoid
travellers passing through their municipality to get access to Public Wi-Fi.
• Discovery and innovation - if the tools for collaborating and creating (ie in this case
being free access to the Internet via Wi-Fi) are provided to a community, then they
themselves will innovate and create new products and services. But this presents a
paradox. It is in many cases impossible to predict what new products and services
could be created by communities that receive more available access to the Internet,
and as such is difficult to justify the cost of enabling such access if benefits cannot be
fully understood.
The rise of mesh networks
Public Wi-Fi services are also being developed by community groups. Community mesh
networks are well established in the US, and are beginning to be introduced in
Australia. One local example of a sustainable community mesh network is that in the city of
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 11 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Goulburn. Goulburn was one of the first towns in Australia to implement such a community
network model. Implemented and managed by The Goulburn Group11 (a local community
development and action group), their model for businesses to share spare bandwidth to
provide Public Wi-Fi is proving to be useful for consumers. These community mesh networks
seem to succeed when an investment is made in the people that share their Wi-Fi service
with the public and the people that manage the overall network. The Goulburn model
comes with its own challenges and has raised questions about who is responsible from
gateway to device (see Goulburn Mulwaree Council case study and Mesh vs Traditional WDS
in the Public Wi-Fi Architecture section of this document for more information).
One aspect frequently overlooked is Public Wi-Fi delivered through municipal
libraries. Libraries are the largest providers of Public Wi-Fi in Australia. The ALIA
Internet Access in Public Libraries Survey 201312 report notes that 70% of libraries across
Australia provide Wi-Fi for their patrons. This report also provides a good overview of some
of the controls imposed by libraries on these Wi-Fi services. Some municipal libraries are
struggling to provide this service, whilst others are pushing the footprint of the network out
into their surrounding open space. The learnings from libraries providing Public Wi-Fi can
provide useful insight for LGAs looking to provide similar services.
The first question that LGAs must answer in their journey in rolling out Public Wi-Fi is why -
why should Council invest in providing Public Wi-Fi?
Resources
• Discussion paper13 on the role of local government in provisioning Public Wi-Fi (US)
Acknowledgement: This section was derived from an interview with and material provided
by Dr Ian McShane14, Senior Research Fellow and Dr Chris K Wilson15, Research Associate,
Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University.
11 http://www.goulburngroup.com.au/ 12 http://mavtechnology.net/download/alia-internet-access-in-public-libraries-survey-2013 13 https://cei.org/pdf/4472.pdf 14 http://www.rmit.edu.au/staff/ianmcshane 15http://www1.rmit.edu.au/browse/About%20RMIT%2FContact%2F;ID=iqyfbl3ed3ls1;STATUS=A?QRY=christopher&STYPE=PEO
PLE
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Survey Results
A survey on Public Wi-Fi was released by Charlie Mac and Associates16 to all MAV Technology
members across Victoria and was run from 18 November through to 5 December 2014. The
purpose of this survey was to obtain a Victorian state-wide view of Public Wi-Fi accessibility,
benefits, challenges, and plans for the future. Of the 79 LGAs across Victoria, 69 have
representation on the MAV Technology committee and 15 of these participated in the survey
(ie 22%).
Two thirds of the respondents indicated that
they already had at least one Public Wi-Fi
service in place. Of those that had not yet
implemented a Public Wi-Fi service, 40% have
plans in place to implement Public Wi-Fi within
the next 6 months. One respondent indicated
that their council had no plans currently for
implementing Public Wi-Fi.
Most LGAs indicated that one of their objectives for implementing Public Wi-Fi was
to provide a value adding service for council facilities, parks and events. This and other
Public Wi-Fi objectives were categorised into 9 objective themes that were derived from
Public Wi-Fi research and informed by the results received from LGAs. These 9 Public Wi-Fi
objective themes are (number of LGAs indicating objectives that aligned with a theme is
shown in brackets):
• Value add at council facilities, parks and events (9);
• Encouraging economic activity (including support for tourism) (6);
• Encouraging innovation (2);
• Bridging the digital divide (2);
• Support for local digital initiatives (1); and
• Ease pressure on mobile networks (1).
One respondent indicated that their objective was simply to implement Public Wi-Fi.
Other objectives that were obtained from research, but were not indicated by any LGA as an
objective include:
• Another means for generating revenue;
16 http://www.charlie-mac.com/
Some of the results obtained from the
Public Wi-Fi survey
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 13 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
• Learning more about the community and their behaviour; and
• Improving political standing.
Respondents indicated that Public Wi-Fi, in a municipal context, is available in a variety of
settings (number of LGAs indicating a particular setting is shown in brackets):
• Libraries (9);
• Council offices (7);
• Council managed open space (3);
• Retail precincts (2); and
• Other (4).
The survey concluded in asking respondents to describe what has worked along with the
challenges that they face (or had faced) in providing a Public Wi-Fi service. In summarising
what had worked, responses were grouped into 8 themes (number of councils that provided
a response that aligned with these themes is shown in brackets):
• Take-up of the service (5);
• Value add to council services and attracts people to those services (4);
• Leveraging council infrastructure (2);
• Ease of set-up (2);
• A blended service model (ie where Council and a service provider run specific parts of
the service) (1);
• Enhancing relationships with other community services (eg hospitals and
universities)(1);
• Bridging the digital divide (1); and
• Positive press (1).
Challenges were grouped into 10 themes:
• Available bandwidth (4);
• Meeting service expectations for users (4);
• Cost (3);
• Sustainable business model (2);
• Ongoing management (2);
• Older Wi-Fi technology in place (1);
• Meeting demand from other Council divisions (1);
• Information capture (ie what information to capture)(1);
• Uptake (ie getting sufficient people to use the service)(1);
• Deciding upon technical architecture (1).
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 14 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Raw survey results, along with interpretive graphs, can be found on the MAV Technology
Portal17
17 http://www.mavtechnology.net/
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Implementation approach
The implementation of Public Wi-Fi for many LGAs is more of a journey than a destination, in
that Public Wi-Fi services require ongoing resources, funding and commitment to maintain.
In addition, as the service matures, many LGAs find that they refine and improve their Public
Wi-Fi services to better meet their objectives and the demands of the communities they
serve.
This section discusses a broad implementation approach available for LGAs to undertake
their Public Wi-Fi journey and guidance on which path may be most beneficial based upon
the rationale made by others in undertaking the implementation path they chose.
An implementation approach is typically structured around the four steps:
• Step 1 - Why are you undertaking this journey and what are you looking to achieve?
• Step 2 - Where would this service be provided?
• Step 3 - What would the service look like to users? What leverage you may be able
to bring to bear in negotiating with third parties? What legislative and regulatory
requirements may you need to adhere to? What level of risk are you prepared to
take? What support do you have for implementing Public Wi-Fi across Council and
the community?
• Step 4 - How would you go about funding design, implementation and support for
such a service? Who do you need support from? Who will design, implement and
support?
Work on these steps may happen sequentially or in parallel to a degree. LGAs may find that
an iterative approach is required where an initial pass of steps 1 through 4 is undertaken,
and then all steps are revisited once further information comes to hand and the concept of
the service takes shape.
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 16 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
The first activity many LGAs undertake in this journey is to confirm why – why they should
provide a Public Wi-Fi service.
Step 1 - Why?
Understanding why is the question that many successful Public Wi-Fi implementations
commence with. The most prevalent reasons why many embark upon a Public Wi-Fi journey
include:
• Encouraging innovation – No-cost Wi-Fi access to the Internet can provide an
environment for innovation to take place.
• Encouraging greater use of indoor and outdoor space – Wireless access to the
Internet can help encourage the community to make better access of public spaces.
• Improving political standing – Public Wi-Fi is a relatively low cost initiative that
provides benefits for many. This is why many see Public Wi-Fi as a great initiative to
help promote Council and the work they do to serve their communities.
• Learning more about people and behaviour – If done in a way that protects personal
privacy, Public Wi-Fi can provide a unique opportunity to understand behaviours of
the community so that Council can provide services that better support them.
• Encouraging economic activity – Public Wi-Fi can encourage people to stay longer in
retail precincts and, as a result, spend more money in those precincts. The Economics
of Public Wi-Fi 18report provides more detail on potential economic benefits for LGAs.
In a survey done by iGR in the US of businesses providing free Wi-Fi, over half saw an
increase in the time spent by patrons on premises and an increase in spending19.
• Bridging the digital divide – social equity. Providing a means for all members of the
community to access the Internet is important for many LGAs. The Internet provides
access to knowledge, facilitates connections with others and creates opportunities to
grow.
• No idea why – There is simply a knowing that implementing a Public Wi-Fi service is
the right thing to do.
Benefits for councils
Public Wi-Fi also provides opportunities for LGAs to offload their own corporate traffic onto
the Wi-Fi network to reduce data costs. This includes:
• Field workers – staff in the field using a mobile device can use the Wi-Fi network to
pull down information or send information to Council.
18 http://telsoc.org/ajtde/2014-03-v2-n1/a20 (note - premium content requires payment of a fee to view) 19 http://www.telecompetitor.com/igr-increased-spending-by-customers-using-free-wi-fi-seen-by-50-of-retailers/
© MAV Technology 2014. All rights reserved. Page 17 4 Mar 14
Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
• GPS tracking – many GPS tracking solutions will apply least cost routing and switch to
a Wi-Fi network when available (rather than use 3G/4G or satellite) for data
communications between the tracking device and the fleet management system.
• Remote sensor monitoring – a more pervasive network, as potentially provided by
Wi-Fi, may provide opportunities to reduce remote sensor data costs (as being
considered by the City of Melbourne).
Step 2 – Where?
LGAs typically provide Public Wi-Fi in one or many of the following locations across their
municipality:
• Within Council buildings and libraries;
• Open space immediately surrounding Council buildings and libraries;
• Popular retail precincts; and/or
• Stand-alone outdoor public space.
Locations should be selected to help achieve the objectives for Public Wi-Fi (ie Step 1 –
Why). In addition, Wi-Fi site survey and planning tools can help identify optimum areas for
placing Access Points. See the section on Public Wi-Fi Architecture for more details.
Step 3 – What?
The success of a Public Wi-Fi service is how well it achieves its objectives, and this usually
means how users take-up the service. Take-up relies upon where the service is located and
also how seamlessly the service operates for the user. Less barriers and complications to
using the service usually mean greater degrees of take-up. Typically, LGAs consider the
following service characteristics to balance take-up with having adequate controls to
manage available bandwidth and operating risk:
• Terms and conditions on a splash page – displayed for new users to the service.
• Single SSID – making roaming between Access Points easier for users
• Enforcing daily download limits – where greater download amounts can be
purchased if required.
• Throttling based on traffic type (eg bit torrent).
• Limiting the use of advertising to provide an experience that is less intrusive for a
user.
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Step 4 – How and who?
When seeking funding options for Public Wi-Fi, the first question to address is whether an
LGA can fully fund the implementation and support required to meet (and sustain)
objectives, or whether alternate business models should be investigated.
A fully funded, end-to-end ownership, model is usually made possible through a Public Wi-Fi
initiative included as a Council Plan action.
If an LGA is unlikely to be able to fully fund design, implementation and support, then
alternate funding models should be considered, including:
• Partnership – where Council forms an agreement with one or more third parties to
collectively provide Public Wi-Fi.
• Discrete ownership – where Council owns part of the solution, and a third party (or
parties) own other parts.
• Community network – where Council supports the community in developing their
own Public Wi-Fi services.
Some business models are more appropriate for achieving particular objectives, such as:
Objective Commonly used business models
Encouraging innovation Community network
Encouraging greater use of indoor and outdoor space Fully funded, end-to-end ownership, Partnership
Improving political standing Fully funded, end-to-end ownership, usually
supported by a Council Plan action
Learning more about people and behaviour Partnership
Encouraging economic activity Partnership
Bridging the digital divide Partnership, Community network
No idea why Partnership
In addition, LGAs should consider the business models that may be most appropriate given
the size of the community they serve and how geographically dispersed it is. As such,
council types serve to characterise the funding options available:
• Small Rural Council– Where Council is of small size (ie <250 employees) and the
community is clustered in small towns and along major roads.
• Regional Council– Where Council is of medium size (ie 250 < employees < 600) and
the community is clustered in major towns.
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
• Metro Council– Within the boundaries of the Melbourne metropolitan area and the
community is dispersed across the municipality.
The funding options typically explored for these council types (if a fully funded model is not
possible) include:
Implementation
track
Options that require
minimal funding
Rationale
Small rural Council
In towns Community network Council can support a sustainable Public Wi-Fi service at minimal
cost.
Other areas Nil Such municipalities are unlikely to have sufficient density of users
to justify a Public Wi-Fi offering.
Regional Council
In towns Partnership,
Community network
Some public spaces and retail precincts may provide the
opportunity to capture enough users to make Public Wi-Fi
economically sustainable. Community networks could increase
coverage.
Other areas Partnership Partnership may provide service in areas that in themselves are
unsustainable. Negotiate as part of agreement for service in
towns.
Metro Council Partnership,
Community network
Sufficient captive users across most areas to provide Public Wi-Fi
through partnership, and augmented by community networks.
Please note that this matrix is not definitive – it simply seeks to highlight business models that
are commonly considered and likely to be worthy for initial investigation. Other business
models, if not shown, may be worth considering also.
In addition, business models relating to specific LGA types are not mutually exclusive (ie an
LGA may find that a Public Wi-Fi presence across their municipality may be made up of a
combination of business models. For example, Public Wi-Fi in popular areas of open space
may be provided through a self-funded model, whilst retail precincts are serviced by a
community network (as in the case of Goulburn).
Business model variations
In exploring possible business model options, an LGA may wish to explore more details of
the variations available within these broad business models. Some of the business model
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
variations and pre-requisites, benefits, broad factors that influence cost and associated risks
related to these variations are described at Attachment A : Business Model Variations.
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Business model details
This section provides more detail on the broad business models that are available to LGAs in
establishing or expanding their existing Public Wi-Fi service. Whilst these business models
are not specific for any particular council, they do serve as a guide for structuring an
approach to engaging third parties, for clarifying the relationship between those third parties
and Council, and for ensuring there is appropriate sharing of cost, risks and benefits.
When an LGA seeks to engage a third party, it is important to understand the leverage that
the LGA can use to negotiate a fair agreement. Typically, in Public Wi-Fi implementations,
four points of leverage are available to LGAs, being:
• Right of way to infrastructure for the mounting, maintenance and support of Access
Points. The value of this right of way will be influenced by many factors, including the
audience that an Access Point in that location is likely to capture. Right of way may
also include access to council networks.
• Backhaul from the perspective of using part of the Council network to deliver
backhaul to Access Points, or negotiating council use of backhaul if that is being
provisioned by the provider.
• Power for Access Points, repeaters and other network equipment.
• Allowing advertising. Advertising and direct email offers may also provide
leverage. For example, Noosa Shire Council20 permits the service provider to show a
short video ad on registration, banner ad across the top of a browser page and/or a
popup. In addition, users opt-in to direct email marketing as part of accepting the
terms and conditions of the service. A similar model is used by Google in US Public
Wi-Fi trials where users are served Google ads and asked to sign into their Google
account after a period of time.
• Sub-leasing part of Wi-Fi access for value-add — eg allowing a third party to run
digital signage enabled by a dedicated channel on the Wi-Fi infrastructure.
When negotiating rights, LGA needs to consider the wider strategic impact of any agreement
on any future smart city strategy eg providing exclusive rights for 10 years may impact on
the ability to deliver a smart city strategy.
The influence of these levers depends on the business model that is to be applied. Right of
way may have significant influence in negotiating a fair deal with a telecommunications
20 http://www.libraries.noosa.qld.gov.au/wireless-internet
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provider, whilst it may have little or no influence in a discreet ownership or fully council
funded model.
Business models for Public Wi-Fi vary in their level of commitment for LGAs and the risks
they are exposed to. Seven models are described below.
End to end ownership. This is where Public Wi-Fi is fully owned and operated by
Council. Most often done by leveraging existing infrastructure (off unpublished CCTV
networks, expanding library Public Wi-Fi footprint out into open space and surrounding
buildings, and starting with a Public Wi-Fi SSID published from existing Access Points). Some
Councils establish new Public Wi-Fi networks to support local initiatives (such as SGSC
provisioning Public Wi-Fi to support the Virtual Treasure Map initiative at Coal Creek Historic
Park). In most cases, Wi-Fi Access Points are mounted on existing council infrastructure and
backhaul is provided through spare capacity in the existing corporate network and the
corporate pipe to the Internet.
To negotiate a better deal, LGAs may consider purchasing Access Points in larger quantities,
agree a fixed price for Access Points for a period of time out into the future (eg 2 years),
and/or negotiate greater bandwidth in connections to the Internet when service agreements
come up for renegotiation.
Discrete ownership model. This is where Council performs part of the service and a service
provider provides the rest. The elements to consider in operating a Public Wi-Fi service
include elements described in the Public Wi-Fi Architecture section. Possible scenarios of
discrete ownership include:
• LGA purchases Access Points and utilises spare capacity on the corporate network for
backhaul. A third party configures and supports the Access Points; or
• LGA supports a Public Wi-Fi service that is supplied, configured and installed by a
third party.
This model relies on clearly defining the party that delivers and supports specific elements of
the service, and who bears risk.
Alliances. Under an alliance arrangement, all parties agree to work together for a common
objective without giving up their independent status. Such an arrangement would mean that
Council and the service provider would work independently with an overarching agreement
in place. There is no common entity and sharing of profits or losses as there would be in a
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
partnership. Alliance contracting21 (as it is called within the context of State Government) is
characterised by a number of key features, which generally require that the parties work
together in good faith, act with integrity and make best-for-project decisions. These
arrangements are typically used by State Government for projects over $50M and thus are
not observed as a business model used for Public Wi-Fi. Councils may find that establishing
an alliance contract may be problematic, in that it is a contractual vehicle that can be
complex, and since it is not commonly used finance departments have little experience in
their development and management. Victorian State Government requirements for alliance
contracting are embodied within the national guidelines. More details on this can be found
within the national guidelines22.
Partnership. A Public Private Partnership23 model is characterised by a government service
being delivered through a partnership of government and private service providers. In this
model, the service is funded and operated by this partnership of government and the private
sector. Victorian Government projects must consider PPPs for investments of over $50M,
although this level of investment is unlikely to be required in the case for municipal Public
Wi-Fi. Again, for most LGAs, PPPs are likely to be complex and with little experience in
Finance to develop or manage against such agreements.
A partnership model may be viable for an LGA for the provision of Public Wi-Fi if the value of
the relationship is likely to be significant (eg providing Public Wi-Fi through many Access
Points across the municipality) and procurement advice is obtained from government
procurement specialists (eg from DSDBI). The extent of leverage that a Council has available
must be understood before commencing discussions. Given that telecommunications
providers are keen to capture Wi-Fi users through a public offering, LGAs may find value in
releasing an EOI to the market for the establishment of such a partnership. An MOU is
sometimes used to define the relationship between an LGA and a third party (see the City of
Melbourne case study).
Globally, popularity in PPPs is waning24, with many government organisations opting towards
joint government initiatives.
In addition, a partnership model is worth considering when looking to capitalise on the
strengths of other agencies and not for profit organisations. One example is council
21 http://www.dtf.vic.gov.au/Infrastructure-Delivery/Alliance-and-traditional-contracting 22 http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/infrastructure/nacg/files/National_Guide_to_Alliance_Contracting04July.pdf 23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public%E2%80%93private_partnership 24 http://slg.sagepub.com/content/45/4/240
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
considering a partnership arrangement with the regional library corporation in their
municipality25.
Fully outsourced, where full operation and risk associated in running the service is borne by
the service provider. All aspects of the service (ie all elements described in the Public Wi-Fi
Architecture section) would be provided for and managed by the service provider. Along
with this, Council may lose a degree of control. An example of such a service may be
through organisations such as:
• iiNet details of current hotspots26 or more details on their service offering27
• Aruba28
• Telstra Wi-Fi Nation29 (see related press article30)
• Optus31 (offering under development)
• Easyweb Digital32
• BigAir Community Broadband33 - ACU, Noosa Shire Council, Sunshine Coast Regional
Council
Community network. Community networks are typically organised as networks, where
Access Points with backhaul make this backhaul available for all other Access Points in
range. This means that collective backhaul bandwidth can be shared across all users that are
connected to any Access Point in the mesh.
For LGAs, community networks provide a means for supporting Public Wi-Fi at little or no
cost. In addition, Council is exposed to little or no risk – particularly if funding is provided
through a community development grant (for example). See Goulburn Mulwaree Council
case study for an example.
The Commotion Wireless organiser page provides a more detailed overview of community
networks.34
25 http://www.mav.asn.au/policy-services/social-community/community-
libraries/relateddocuments/Public%20libraries%20options%20paper.docx – for general information on library / LGA partnering
opportunities. 26 http://www.iinet.net.au/wifi-hotspots/connect.html 27 http://www.iinet.net.au/wifi-hotspots/about-iinet-wifi.pdf 28 http://www.arubanetworks.com/ 29 http://crowdsupport.telstra.com.au/t5/Wi-Fi-Nation-Knowledge-Base/WIFI-Nation/ta-p/396826 30 http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/545556/telstra_partners_fon_build_one_world_largest_wi-fi_networks/ 31 http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/business-it/optus-preparing-to-enter-free-wifi-battle-20141020-118mhc.html 32 http://www.easywebdigital.com/products/wifi/municipal-wifi 33 http://www.bigaircommunitybroadband.com.au/ 34 https://commotionwireless.net/docs/cck/
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Other community network configurations can include:
• Clusters – where advocacy groups encourage people to share their Internet
connection with others
• WISP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Internet_service_provider) – a network
that forwards all traffic to a link aggregation point or points that provide backhaul to
the Internet.
• Wireless User Group (WUG) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_user_group – where
participants have a closed network for their own use.
Become the ISP. The City of Burnie in Tasmania, remains the anomaly in the Australian
municipal Public Wi-Fi landscape, having created Tas Communications Unit Trust to provide
Public Wi-Fi and other communications services to local government entities in
Tasmania. This business was spawned in 2007 from its work in providing fibre and wireless
network services. To this day, Tas Communications Unit Trust is wholly owned35 by the City of
Burnie and its directors are employees of Council. This model is more likely to be applicable
in the US where municipal authorities own large scale networks and monetising capacity is a
logical next step.
35 http://www.tascom.net.au/about/Annual-Financial-Statement-2012.pdf
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Case studies
Case studies are provided from a range of organisations based in Victoria, other parts of
Australia and across the globe. Whilst the focus of these case studies is on LGA
implementations (and plans for implementation), other notable case studies from other areas
of government, the not-for-profit community, and the private sector are also included.
South Gippsland Shire Council
South Gippsland Shire Council (SGSC) commenced the efforts to introduce Public Wi-Fi with
a trial that covered the town centre of Leongatha. This trial was well publicised through local
media, but suffered from low take-up. The trial concluded after three months and the
service was subsequently turned off. SGSC is now implementing a more permanent Public
Wi-Fi service covering the tourist destination of Coal Creek Historic Park to support a virtual
treasure hunt offering for patrons of the park.
SGSC also provide Public Wi-Fi through their libraries, and this service is a ticket based
system (ie password to access provided over the counter) provided by the West Gippsland
Library Group.
Implementation phases
Trial
SGSC conducted a Public Wi-Fi trial in the centre of Leongatha, running for one month from
14 August to 14 September 2014, and was the only Public Wi-Fi action in the SGSC Annual
Plan for 2014/15. One Access Point was deployed from the Memorial Hall and provided
service down McCartin St and the Bass Hwy. The service was provided by Ruckus36 as a
managed service. In using the service, users were greeted with a splash page upon
connecting to the service that asked some simple demographic questions followed by a
redirect to the SGSC Facebook page along with an invite to like the page. The launch of this
Public Wi-Fi trial was done at the same time as the launch of the SGSC Facebook page and
the 'selfie' promotion - where the community was invited to take a picture of themselves and
post it on the SGSC Facebook page with the chance of winning prizes.
Terms and conditions of the Public Wi-Fi trial were provided by Ruckus as part of the
managed service. They also provided content filtering. There was no traffic blocking or
shaping although these may be considered if a more permanent service is implemented in
the future. Creating of the splash page and the redirect to the SGSC Facebook page seemed
36 http://www.ruckuswireless.com/press/releases/20100726-apac-expansion
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
to take longer than expected. The existing SGSC corporate network was used for
backhaul. The cost of the trial was $3,500. There was an additional charge for more detailed
statistics, of which SGSC did not decide to purchase.
During the trial, the Public Wi-Fi service received an average of 7 connections per
day. Negligible bandwidth was consumed. The most popular device OS that connected to
the service was iOS, followed by Android and was used by equal numbers of males and
females. The service was more frequently used by people in the 30 to 35 age bracket.
Coal Creek Public Wi-Fi
SGSC have recently deployed Public Wi-Fi across the Coal Creek Historic Park. One Access
Point is provided in the main building (at the entrance of the park) and another further into
the park. This implementation is being soft trialled for a few weeks - with no
advertising. Staff have been informed that it is available, whilst the public learn of it
surreptitiously. The intention of this Wi-Fi service is to support a virtual treasure map
offering - that has recently received Council funding and approval to proceed.
SGSC settled on using Cisco Meraki Wi-Fi Access Points because of their purchase cost (cost
of devices at Coal Creek is around $6,500), free support upon purchase, ease of
implementation, flexibility of configuration and reporting functionality. Their cost
effectiveness means that SGSC are likely to purchase and implement extra units to expand
the footprint of this network across the park and into the adjoining township of
Korumburra. The units were configured within the IT department before being deployed
onsite.
The existing 2Mbps link between SGSC headquarters and the Coal Creek Historic Park
(provided by Aussie Broadband) was increased to 20Mbps to provide headroom for backhaul
for the new Public Wi-Fi service.
The future
In the shorter term, SGSC is looking to reinstate a Public Wi-Fi service in the centre of
Leongatha as a permanent service - most likely using Cisco Meraki Access Points that are
provisioned and managed by the IT department. This will be done once extra capacity is
provisioned in Council's primary Internet connection (to increase from 50 to 100
Mbps). SGSC are also looking to explore possible avenues for funding the upfront purchase
of Access Points. One possible opportunity is to access RDV funding (where they were
offering funding of 3 to 1 for regional digital initiatives). Council's intention is if they can
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
secure external funding to purchase Access Points, then Council will provide backhaul
through the corporate network and provide ongoing support through the IT department.
Beyond the Coal Creek Historic Park, SGSC intend to expand Public Wi-Fi into the main retail
precinct of Korumburra. An Access Point would be placed on the telecommunications tower
at the western end of town, with more along the main street. This service would also provide
an alternative way of accessing the Internet for Council staff in the event of disaster. In such
a case, SGSC would reclaim the service for Council use only. Even though Council provision
devices and provide ongoing management of the service, there is a question on who pays
for powering the devices. Some businesses in Korumburra are happy to absorb this cost.
SGSC would then like to expand Public Wi-Fi to Foster (to support Community Forums and
tourism).
The real benefit that Public Wi-Fi provides communities in SGSC is yet to be
understood. During the trial, SGSC believed that some businesses would do away with their
Internet service. But what they observed was that businesses stayed with their current
service provider, and some decided to provide a free Wi-Fi service of their own.
In the medium term, any Public Wi-Fi service needs to provide benefits that support ongoing
investment. But as long as the Public Wi-Fi service delivers a service that meets Council
expectations, then IT will continue to support rollout of more Public Wi-Fi Access Points off
the corporate network backbone. In addition, it will continue to look for ways to increase
backhaul bandwidth where this makes economic sense.
Take-aways
• Take-up of Public Wi-Fi can be slow, even if the service is well publicised. This is
particularly noted in an area where the use of Wi-Fi enabled mobile devices is limited
(Leongatha is situated amongst a traditional farming community).
• One sustainable path for providing Public Wi-Fi seems to be where the service is used
to support a local application (in this case, a virtual treasure map) and where spare
capacity on a council's corporate network is utilised for backhaul.
• Cisco Meraki Access Points provide control with no ongoing cost. Meraki is suited
where network administration is performed in-house.
Acknowledgement: Raelene Bennett, Manager Information Systems and Support, South
Gippsland Shire Council, [email protected]
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East Gippsland Shire Council
East Gippsland Shire Council (EGSC) provides a Public Wi-Fi service at council buildings and
libraries, as well as providing the service at two Council managed caravan parks. EGSC is
exploring alternatives for providing Public Wi-Fi along the main retail precinct in Bairnsdale,
but is yet to confirm a business model for such a service. As such, funding is yet to be
secured.
Current Situation
EGSC provides Public Wi-Fi at Customer Service Centres in major towns and at municipal
libraries. The service in most cases extends around 50m into the surrounding open space to
encourage a free flowing space that attracts people into and out of council buildings. EGSC
also provides Public Wi-Fi at two Council managed caravan parks - Mallacoota and Eagle
Point. The SSID of "Public" is used at all council buildings as a Public Wi-Fi channel. Other
SSIDs available are: Staff, Councillors and Contractors - all with different levels of
access. Backhaul for the Public Wi-Fi service in each building is through a separate ADSL2
network connection to that used for traffic related to other EGSC corporate SSIDs.
Public Wi-Fi usage in Council buildings is restricted to web browsing and streaming media
traffic is blocked. All other sites that offer EGSC Public Wi-Fi have open and unrestricted
access (eg caravan parks). In Council buildings and libraries, HP MSM460 series Access
Points were deployed. Content filtering for council buildings and libraries is provided
through a Tesserent appliance on site. Cisco Meraki Access Points are used at caravan
parks. EGSC believe Cisco Meraki devices provide more granular control than the HP Access
Points, whilst being easy to setup and deploy. Content filtering for caravan parks is provided
by the ISP that provides backhaul for these Public Wi-Fi Access Points.
Libraries have basic filtering rules in place to prevent the viewing of pornography or the
downloading of viruses. Access provided at Caravan Parks is open (with no content filtering
rules in place) but does block Apple updates and throttle bandwidth available for YouTube
streaming down to 100kbps per session. Last summer (ie 2013/14), over 4000 unique
devices were connected to the Access Points in Mallacoota over the December and January
period.
A ticket system is used for accessing the Public Wi-Fi service at council buildings and
libraries. The password generated (and printed on a ticket) at one location can be used at all
other locations. Users of this Public Wi-Fi service can access as a guest for the first 15
minutes, then after this, must obtain a password to continue. Users must also accept a set of
terms and conditions before gaining access.
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
The Public Wi-Fi service is promoted by signage at the caravan parks and libraries.
The Future
EGSC plan to expand Public Wi-Fi to cover the retail precinct along the main street of
Bairnsdale. Proposals for this work have been put forward to Council, although they have
not yet been approved. There is a concern about Council offering a competing service
to local businesses offering free Wi-Fi, and thus diluting their competitive
advantage. Subsequently, proposals to expand Public Wi-Fi are on hold at this stage. If
investment in Public Wi-Fi is approved, EGSC would look to leverage their existing (and
hidden) wireless network used for CCTV cameras.
EGSC is interested in exploring shared models - whether that be sharing investment with
other councils or working together with local businesses to increase the footprint of Public
Wi-Fi across the shire. EGSC is interested also in applying a model that works for other
councils. As mentioned, there is no funding currently available for expanding Public Wi-Fi
services. EGSC is relying upon renegotiation of communication link agreements as they
expire to fund extra bandwidth for backhaul and to support expansion of the service
footprint.
EGSC understand that investment in Public Wi-Fi infrastructure is difficult given that much of
their population is spread along major roads rather than clustering in specific locations.
Take-aways
• Rural and remote areas have challenges in delivering Public Wi-Fi services where the
population is not clustered in towns.
• Cisco Meraki provides a cost effective solution for Public Wi-Fi Access Points.
• Holiday spots can see great demand for Public Wi-Fi services - especially where
tourists tend to remain in the same area, rather than travelling through.
Acknowledgement: Sohan Gunasekra, Manager Information Services, East Gippsland Shire
Council, [email protected]
Goulburn Mulwaree Council
This case study focuses on the Public Wi-Fi offering delivered by The Goulburn
Group (TGG)37 and that is now partially funded by Goulburn Mulwaree Council38. This Public
37 http://www.goulburngroup.com.au/wifi.php 38 http://www.goulburn.nsw.gov.au/
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Wi-Fi service is essentially a community mesh network where local businesses share a
dedicated portion of their Internet backhaul for the purpose of providing Public Wi-Fi.
In addition, Goulburn Mulwaree Library provides Public Wi-Fi services through the Southern
Tablelands Library Cooperative.
History
In 2008, the TGG asked Council for financial support to implement Public Wi-Fi across the
town. The TGG echoed community sentiment of the time, being that they were disappointed
in missing out on the NBN rollout that was touted as the lifeblood of rural and regional
Australia. Their initial request was to cover implementation costs of $16,000 and ongoing
operational costs of $6,000 per annum. Council were worried about the legal implications
(specifically their legal liability) of funding such a service. The proposal was later rejected.
A subsequent proposal39 was put forward for Council to fund a total project cost of
$20,000. This proposal was also rejected.
In March 2013, TGG launched Goulburn Free Wireless - where one business in the main
street provided backhaul through spare capacity in their broadband connection, and two
other businesses provided relay services. TGG found that many businesses had business
Internet plans that provided 200 to 500 Gb of downloads per month and that they were
using only a small percentage of this capacity (some as low as 10% of total download
capacity). Goulburn Free Wi-Fi project co-ordinator Alex Ferrara developed software that
helps ensure participating businesses stay within their data limits.
The service relies upon businesses across the Goulburn area to donate bandwidth and for
volunteers to supply labour to setup new Access Points and manage the network. Council
now invests $3,000 per annum40 for the next three years to help develop and grow the
network. This is provided as a grant with no implied responsibility or liability.
Current state
In June, TGG reported41 that the service had 8624 connections from 4110 unique devices
over the Monday Bank Holiday (12 June 2014). The service is provided through 12 Access
Points across the town (with one located in a wetlands area to help encourage tourists to
39 http://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/968052/free-wifi-set-for-cbd/ 40 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-18/gx-free-wifi/4761806 41 http://www.goulburnpost.com.au/story/2347665/goulburn-free-wi-fi-proves-popular/
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
take photos of wildlife and in turn attract more visitors). The wetlands Access Point is solar
powered with backhaul provided from the Eastgrove Childcare Centre.
TGG monitor network use to ensure that bandwidth limits are not exceeded. They allow
traffic important for social networking, including emails, Facebook, Twitter, Viber and
Skype. In addition, they discourage large file downloads.
Businesses choose how to deliver the service to users from their Access Point. One
alternative is free and open access. A voucher system to control access is also
offered. Vouchers can be shared with other participating businesses, in a way promoting
other businesses that offer the Public Wi-Fi service.
Resources
• More details of the TGG implementation of Public Wi-Fi as provided by Dr Ian
McShane - http://portal.lgict.net/download/the-goulburn-group-case-
study/%20%E2%80%8EE.
• Wireless in the wetlands - ABC Rural interview with TGG chairman Urs Walterlin -
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-20/wifi-in-the-wetlands-at-goulburn/5104768
• A blog of research material collected by Dr Ian McShane and others that includes
more details on Goulburn Public Wi-Fi -
http://publicwifiaustralia.wordpress.com/goulburn/
Take-aways
• Community mesh networks can be robust and sustainable.
• They rely upon proponents within the community that can drive growth and have the
trust of the local business community. They also rely on volunteers to grow and
manage ongoing operations of the network.
• Council can support such networks with little risk through a community development
grant (all borne by TGG and business owners in this case).
City of Melbourne
The City of Melbourne is one of three councils participating in the State Government Public
Wi-Fi Trial (the other two being City of Ballarat and City of Greater Bendigo). This case study
focuses on the Public Wi-Fi journey City of Melbourne have undertaken to this point, as well
as their perspective on participating in the trial.
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Background
City of Melbourne added a Council Plan action to explore the possibility of implementing
Public Wi-Fi. Council embarked upon a Public Wi-Fi leadership initiative at the time where
they reviewed much of the available research with the view of understanding how they could
deliver a free service in a sustainable way that also supported business development across
the CBD. This research did not yield enough direct evidence to suggest that Public Wi-Fi
could be sustainable (eg community mesh networks were investigated but sufficient
backhaul was going to be difficult to secure). Nonetheless, City of Melbourne wanted to trial
a service to obtain actual information about potential take-up and usage. They were in the
planning stages of undertaking a trial with Telstra and were close to deciding upon sites for
Access Points when the State Government asked City of Melbourne to participate in their
Public Wi-Fi trial. Subsequently, State Government announced the trial in March 2014. City
of Ballarat and City of Greater Bendigo were later included.
An EOI for implementing and supporting the service for three years was released to the
market, led by the Department of State Development, Business and Innovation
(DSDBI). iiNet was awarded the contract on 24 October 2014.
EOI details
Under the contract with the State Government, iiNet will provide end point access to the
Internet over Wi-Fi at a total price of $6.7M. iiNet is responsible for provisioning and
maintaining all Access Points and backhaul for the term of the contract. Access Points will be
mounted on council infrastructure (including light poles and buildings). Council also
provides power for Access Points. High level design has been agreed, and detailed design is
currently underway (as of 23 December 2014). Two initial Access Points at Queen Victoria
Market were commissioned in the week of 17 November 2014 and are now
operational. Rollout of the full network will take around 15 months to complete. The
contract requires iiNet to deliver the service within a set of SLAs that will be agreed during
the course of the project. iiNet is also responsible for collecting data on usage and providing
details to City of Melbourne so that they may better understand the behaviour of users.
An MoU and Facilities Access Agreement defines the relationship between City of
Melbourne, iiNet and State Government. Under the MoU, City of Melbourne are able to use
this new network for connecting city services (inc the 5000+ remote sensors located across
the CBD). Some services will also be offered to other government buildings.
City of Melbourne is seeking a service that provides seamless access to the Internet for
users. They believe that the service will help visitors upload photos, share stories and
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
promote Melbourne as a place to visit. They also believe that more work needs to be done
to understand use cases of Public Wi-Fi usage so that the service can be optimised to service
these use cases. For example, there is unlikely to be a need for Public Wi-Fi access along city
streets in the middle of winter. At this stage, the benefit of Public Wi-Fi is not clear.
Service details
The service is designed so as to provide minimal barriers to up-take and usage. A set of
terms and conditions will need to be accepted before access is provided to the service. iiNet
are responsible for providing the filtering of illegal content and to block app traffic.
There is no planned interoperability between this Public Wi-Fi network and others across the
city (including that offered in Federation Square by the Fed Square Corporation).
Resources
• Presentation on the Victorian Free Public Wi-Fi Pilot from DSDBI -
http://portal.lgict.net/download/victorian-free-public-wifi-pilot.
Take-aways
• Understanding why Public Wi-Fi is important for achieving a successful outcome.
• Access to council assets and granting of rights of way provide councils with leverage
in negotiating Public Wi-Fi agreements with telecommunication carriers.
• In turn, councils should consider negotiating access to the Public Wi-Fi network for
council operational use.
Acknowledgements: Colin Fairweather, Chief Information Officer, City of Melbourne,
[email protected], and Lorraine Tighe, Smart City and Innovation
Program Manager, Business Information Services Branch, City of Melbourne,
City of Port Phillip
The City of Port Phillip (CoPP) currently provides a Public Wi-Fi service from their municipal
library. In addition, they have commenced planning to grow this service into public open
spaces and retail precincts.
Background
CoPP currently provides a Public Wi-Fi service out of their municipal library - the footprint of
which provides coverage for areas in Council buildings facing the library. The service is very
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
popular, with people sitting on the steps of the library after it closes to use the service. The
service is switched off in the late evening. In general, the performance of the public Internet
service (including Public Wi-Fi and through fixed library PCs) is poor – attributable to
insufficient backhaul capacity. There is no policy in place for restricting or limiting the type
of content that can be consumed.
In response to growing interest and lack of performance in current offerings, CoPP has
established a Public Wi-Fi Working Group. The group is chartered with the responsibility of
identifying service offering opportunities (including open public spaces, courtyards and
plazas); establishing a viable standardised service framework and developing business cases.
The working group are also working closely with the South Melbourne Market (being a CoPP
managed facility) and the Meetings and Events team (public venues).
South Melbourne Market provides Public Wi-Fi under a similar model used by Brisbane City
Council. Easyweb.com provide the captive portal and manage download limits.
Council is helping local businesses understand how business Public Wi-Fi might benefit
them. Many businesses have complained that the commercial quotes they have been
provided are too expensive. The drivers for business Public Wi-Fi are slightly different, in
needing a service that provides free access and encourages patronage (ie not necessarily
interested in providing a service for public good). They need a service that can scale in times
of demand (such as around the Christmas holiday period). CoPP developed an Investment
Logic Map42– that helps stakeholders understand the drivers for implementing Public Wi-Fi
in a range of contexts.
Plans for the future
In anticipation of future demand, the Business Technology department of CoPP are looking
to improve the flexibility and pricing of their Internet service provision. They have recently
gone to the market for elastic pricing (the ability to scale up and down the size of their
Internet connection on a monthly basis) with no data charges. Once this is in place,
additional capacity can be provided to the library for a fee. Other business units looking to
increase the footprint of Public Wi-Fi will need to provide a business case and have funding
set aside for all costs.
In addition, they are ensuring replacement data switches that make up the corporate
network are Wi-Fi expandable, with potential capability to backhaul Wi-Fi services over
council network infrastructure where there would be no impact to Council staff (like after
hours).
42 http://mavtechnology.net/download/investment-logic-map/
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Take-aways
• Consider Public Wi-Fi requirements when renewing Council network infrastructure or
network contracts.
• Commit business units to funding implementation and support costs if they want to
grow or leverage the Public Wi-Fi service. This process starts with a sound business
case.
• Understand there are different contexts for implementing Public WiFi, so there may
be a need for several services / business cases.
Detroit
Detroit is a city of contrasts. Downturns in the automotive and manufacturing sectors and
decades of underinvestment in public infrastructure have resulted in many communities of
disadvantage. Research suggests that more than half of the community do not have access
to the Internet. On the other hand, Detroit is being seen across the US (and globally) as a
centre of innovation. It has a significant student population and an active bohemian culture.
It has long been a centre of creative pursuits, being the home of some well renowned artists.
At the heart of this push for innovation is the philosophy of helping people help themselves,
being driven by not for profit community groups. Public Wi-Fi underpins this innovation,
providing the community with access to a resource that is important for their growth and
prosperity.
There are three major Community Public Wi-Fi network initiatives being run out of the
Detroit area.
Cass Corridor
The Cass Corridor43 Public Wi-Fi network44 connects low-income apartment buildings,
community centres, churches and businesses in the Cass Corridor district and is the testing
ground for Commotion Wireless – an open source mesh solution by the New America
Foundation's Open Technology Institute (OTI). This network has ties to similar networks in
North Corktown, and 48217 neighbourhoods. The network was funded by the John S and
James L Knight Foundation and the US State Department. The State Department sees access
to the Internet as a tool for community empowerment. They are keen for this technology to
be deployed in Syria and Egypt so these communities can still talk to each other and the
outside world if their governments restrict access to the web45.
North Corktown
The Digital Justice Coalition (DJC)46 coordinated the deployment of a community mesh
network into the North Corktown area in June 2010. Called the Hot Mesh initiative, it was
43 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cass_Corridor 44 http://cassco.co/ 45 https://gigaom.com/2012/12/18/detroit-is-the-testing-ground-for-a-new-open-source-wireless-network-technology/ 46 http://detroitdjc.org/
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
brought into being through a partnership of seven groups, being: the local community,
resident technologists, a local business that provided a collaborative space, the residents
association providing a platform for community improvements, Allied Media Projects and
DJC people provided additional capacity and community outreach to adjoining areas, OTI
provided technical support and hardware, and peer projects such as gowasabi.net,
51Open.org, and CUWiN.net shared lessons learnt from similar implementations they had
done.
See
http://newamerica.net/publications/special/a_community_wireless_mesh_prototype_in_detroi
t_mi_34925 for more details on this project, including costs and the story of how this project
evolved.
48217 neighbourhood
The 48217 neighbourhood is a Detroit district that is the home of a robust and close-knit
network of neighbourhood organisations, or block clubs. Their initial intention was for block
captains to form the backbone of the network using wireless routers on rooftops. Then
other members of the community could participate with a wireless router on their window
sill. This Community network is still in the community consultation phase and is work-in-
progress47.
More details on the 48217 neighbourhood initiatives can be found at
http://www.globalmediapolicy.net/node/1218, especially relating to the process that the OTI
used to engage the community and the challenges they face.
Take-aways
• Community networks help communities help themselves. New modes of civic
engagement become possible that strengthen local social fabric and provide
opportunities for local applications.
• Community networks rely upon trust.
• Councils can get involved in a small (eg grant funding) or more significant way (eg
being the facilitator of community networks).
General references
• Detroit is becoming the lab for wireless innovation -
http://oti.newamerica.net/pressroom/2012/advisory_detroit_breaking_ground_as_lab_
for_wireless_innovation.
• More on Detroit community Wi-Fi initiatives and how they are rebuilding
communities can be found at
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/10/detroit_mesh_networks.html
47 http://detroitdjc.org/?page_id=175
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
• Allied Media Projects (https://alliedmedia.org/) runs the Digital Stewards Program
(http://detroitdigitalstewards.tumblr.com/) across the Detroit region to build local
capacity and understanding in Wi-Fi networks.
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay area is well known as a centre of creativity and innovation in this
digital age. And as such, it is no surprise that many Public Wi-Fi ventures have come and
gone in this part of the world. This case study provides an overview of two notable Public
Wifi offerings.
Silicon Valley Unwired
Silicon Valley Unwired48 is a not for profit community group made up of engineers and
entrepreneurs, and was founded by Andrew Gold49 and Karl Garcia.
This network was first introduced in the city of Milpitas (CA) in June 2009 and uses over 300
Access Points previously installed by EarthLink Inc. Earthlink failed in their attempt in 2007 to
provide subscriber based Internet services across the US, including in Milpitas50. Earthlink
handed over these Access Points to the City of Milpitas after they decided that they could
not turn a profit. International Network Solutions is the operator and Google is the major
service contributor. Financial backing was provided by the City of Milpitas for upgrading the
network in mid-2014. This network is similar to the free Public Wi-Fi network provided by
Google in Mountain View (CA) – now decommissioned, see below. The service publishes a
support email address that is monitored but not always answered. The network uses one
SSID (SVUPublicWiFi) with open authentication and no encryption. Users eventually need a
Google account to login.
More detail of the service can be found at
http://www.ci.milpitas.ca.gov/government/is/wifi_service.asp
Google Wi-Fi
Google Wi-Fi was introduced in Mountain View (the home of Google) on 16 August 2006. In
2009, Google Wi-Fi served over 16,000 unique visitors a month and averaged downloads of
500Gb over a 24 hour period. In addition, Google provided free VPN software (known as
Google Access Secure) to help users secure their connection. Users were given a unique IP
address leased for one hour from a DHCP pool. One SSID was available, being GoogleWiFi
(wifi.google.com). Plagued with service interruptions in late 2013, the Mountain View
48 http://www.svunwired.com/ 49 https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjgold 50 http://www.mercurynews.com/milpitas/ci_24978059/milpitas-free-wi-fi-service-is-restored
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
network was shut down on 3 May 2014 and is to be replaced by another outdoor network
that will focus on the Castro Street retail corridor of Mountain View51.
No direct support was provided to users, although the service website did provide a number
to leave a message. Users are made aware these messages were monitored but not all
messages would be responded to.
Yarra Plenty Regional Library
Yarra Plenty Regional Library has provided Public Wi-Fi to its patrons since 2008. They
started in one branch, with a single Access Point and the service was only available to
laptops.
Access to the service is provided via a patron’s library card.
The Library uses several SSIDs. The standard public "Library Wi-Fi" is the same no matter
what branch you are in. "Library Staff" is on a different VLAN, authenticated through Active
Directory. "Library Devices" is a hidden SSID used for library managed Apple TVs and in-
branch equipment. They avoid changing the password on this SSID. In addition, there is the
"Library Building" SSID – used by environmental equipment to connect and report to base,
without requiring a direct connection to the network.
Technical details
The Public Wi-Fi service provides downloads of 2.6 Tb per month (as recorded in October
2014). They estimate that this backhaul consumes most of the capacity of 3 NBN
(100/40Mbps) services, and costs around $480 per month. Access Points are licensed, as
required, and the hardware-controller-replacing virtual vWLAN appliance is free. Yarra Plenty
Regional Library believes that their Public Wi-Fi service supports download volumes greater
than any other public library in the state.
The Library uses Adtran Bluesocket vWLAN52 controllers for providing central management
functions – including captive portal, intelligent traffic routing and Wireless Intrusion
Detection (W-IDS). This software also provides authentication of users over SIP. Reporting is
done by Wi-Fi Reporter53 (by International Network Engineers Pty Ltd). Developed by Les
Firth, Wi-Fi Reporter is based on Microsoft Excel and was specifically developed for
Bluesocket appliances and solutions. Sample reports for Wi-Fi Reporter can be found at
51 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Wi-Fi 52 https://www.adtran.com/web/page/portal/Adtran/product/1951900G1/4044 53 http://www.ine.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=105&Itemid=103
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
https://plus.google.com/photos/116753836722190679227/albums/5456177983842867761?a
uthkey=CKSBv8a02vXegQE
The future
The Library do now have Library Wi-Fi available around their Bookmobile. With no ability to
authenticate patrons, no password will be needed. They see that this sort of portable facility
would be good to bring in to towns that have been cut off from the outside world by some
form of local disaster.
Take-aways
• vWLAN solutions provide benefits for large, distributed Wi-Fi networks.
• Aggregated reporting solutions can help in overall capacity planning and decision-
making about the network.
• Yarra Plenty Regional Library believes that they are the largest provider of Public Wifi
when compared with other local government authorities (in download throughput
per month).
Acknowledgement: Les Firth, Yarra Plenty Regional Library, [email protected]
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
A carrier perspective
Carriers benefit from offloading 3G and 4G traffic onto Wi-Fi networks as it relieves the strain
on these mobile networks and thus slows down the rate of infrastructure investment
required. Mobile data usage is predicted to grow exponentially, and in turn, investment in
infrastructure should grow along with this. Given mobile data infrastructure is more costly
than Wi-Fi infrastructure per Mb downloaded, carriers are now investing in efforts to migrate
traffic where possible to Wi-Fi.
Wireless 20|2054 believe that carriers can achieve a positive ROI in densely populated areas
(like New York) when 20% of this geographic area is covered by Wi-Fi services. In less
densely populated areas (like San Diego), an ROI was maximised with 40% coverage of the
geographic area and an AP density of 24 APs per square km.
Capturing indoor Wi-Fi solutions seem to be the most cost effective for carriers. Providing
sufficient backhaul for outdoor Wi-Fi installations can be cost prohibitive.
Movement in this space has begun with Telstra announcing their plans for a Public Wi-Fi
offering and Optus looking to select prime areas to rollout their public Wi-Fi solution.
Carriers overseas have beginning to bundle WISPr (Wireless Internet Service Provider
roaming) clients with their smartphone offerings. Carriers, in the short term, will look to
capture users in specific geographic areas to maximise their ROI in shifting to Wi-Fi.
Particularly in the in the shorter term, LGAs have an opportunity to capitalise on this need by
offering, in particular, right-of-way in exchange for Council use of the service. Additional
levers available to LGAs are discussed further in the Business Model Details section of this
document.
General references
• A business case for carrier offload to Wi-Fi
http://www.wireless2020.com/docs/CarrierWiFiOffloadWhitePaper03202012.pdf.
Includes details of some case studies (US)
• http://www.analysysmason.com/Research/Custom/Webinars/Wi-Fi-offload-webinar-
Feb2012/Slides/
54 http://wireless2020.com/
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Telstra
Telstra is working on a strategy for providing widespread Public Wi-Fi services across
Australia. This will be delivered through Public Private Partnerships and through their retail
and SME Bigpond customer network. Their Public Wi-Fi offering is called Wi-Fi Nation and,
in essence, provides:
• One SSID for Public Wi-Fi access across Australia
• Over 1000 Wi-Fi Nation enabled Access Points, and expecting around 8000 enabled
Access Points by the end of 2015.
• Regulated download. Once limit is reached, customers can opt to consume their
remaining download amount from their home Bigpond account. Those that are not a
Telstra Bigpond customer can purchase a day pass to increase their download limit.
• Customers now have the option to upgrade their existing Bigpond Wi-Fi router for
one that is Wi-Fi Nation ready (ie pushes out Telstra’s Public Wi-Fi SSID).
Their preference is to partner with LGAs, and other organisations, rather than to participate
in a tender process. As part of a partnership with an LGA, Telstra is prepared to discuss
options such as joint management of SSIDs, and where Telstra Free Wi-Fi may be routed to
another network (independent of an LGA’s corporate network).
Telstra believe that any Public Wi-Fi service must be sustainable and that an advertising
partnership will not work for LGAs.
Telstra is also considering other offerings in the future, including an Enterprise Wi-Fi offering
Out-of-the-Box, and mesh topologies for home networks.
Telstra has recently signed a partnership with Fon55 for providing international Wi-Fi roaming
access for Bigpond customers.
Other resources
• More details on Telstra’s initial plans for offering Public Wi-Fi at
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/telstra-begins-trial-of-100m-
wifi-network/story-fn91v9q3-1227074957358
• Discussion on Telstra partnership with Fon
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2323485
• More on Telstra’s Wi-Fi plans
http://www.blogcentral.rmit.edu.au/2014/10/customers-to-provide-hotspots-in.html,
55 http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/5/27/technology/real-reason-telstras-building-public-wi-fi-network
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/545656/telstra_100m_wi-
fi_network_everything_need_know/
Acknowledgement: Derived from a discussion with Peter Barnett, Business Development
Executive, Global Enterprise and Services, Telstra
Optus
Optus are looking to cherry-pick areas for Public Wi-Fi through arrangements with LGAs
rather than establish a national network – as being developed by Telstra.
More on Optus plans for introducing Public Wi-Fi at http://www.theage.com.au/it-
pro/business-it/optus-preparing-to-enter-free-wifi-battle-20141020-118mhc.html
Vodafone
At this stage, Vodafone seem to have no publicly available plans for releasing a Public Wi-Fi
offering.
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Implementation Guidelines
This section includes specific guidance on designing, implementing and supporting Public
Wi-Fi services for LGAs.
In a partnership model, many of these requirements will be performed by the service
provider. In a council funded model, Council may wish to consider the implications of the
regulation provided below whilst also obtaining specialist legal advice.
Please note. The information provided in this section is offered as a guide only. It is the
author's interpretation of how these legislative and regulatory instruments may influence
Public Wi-Fi design and operation. The information provided below does not constitute legal
advice. You should always consult a legal specialist if you need to understand how these
instruments may specifically affect you and your organisation.
This section does not establish any compliance requirements for Public Wi-Fi services. This
section does provide a high level overview on the applicable legislative and regulatory
environment. If there is a conflict between the requirements outlined in this section and any
requirements imposed on a Public Wi-Fi service provider through regulation, then the
requirements of regulation take precedence.
Legislation and Regulation
This section discusses the instruments of legislation and regulation that may influence Public
Wi-Fi design and operation for LGAs.
Sometimes the legislative and regulatory requirements of Public Wi-Fi service providers can
be unclear, particularly given that in some cases, Public Wi-Fi services can be deemed by
ACMA as requiring a Carrier license, or the less onerous Carrier Service Provider license.
Privacy Act
In the operation of Public Wi-Fi, some organisations seek to collect information about how
the service is used and who uses the service – and this is fair and reasonable for monitoring
the performance and managing the service. But if the information collected can be
reasonably used to identify an individual, then provisions of the Privacy Act apply.
The ALRC in their report For Your Information: Australian Privacy Law and Practice (ALRC
Report 108) 56state their view that "while…IP addresses may not be personal information for
56 http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/6.%20The%20Privacy%20Act%3A%20Some%20Important%20Definitions/what-
%E2%80%98personal-information%E2%80%99
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
the purposes of the Privacy Act, such information may become personal information in
certain circumstances" (see para 6.60 for more details). In the context of Public Wi-Fi,
personally identifiable information may include the collection of demographic information.
Organisations that collect information that is personally identifiable in the operation of a
Public Wi-Fi service should consider the implications of the following Australian Privacy
Principles (APPs):
• APP 1 - open and transparent management. If personal information is collected, then
processes surrounding the collection and use of this information must be made
available to users.
• APP 2 - a user of the service must have the option of de-identifying themselves.
• APP 3 - personal information is only collected if there is an operational purpose for
doing so (like for the purpose of improving the service).
• APP 5 - a user must be notified that personal information will be collected during the
course of them using the service. This may be included in terms and conditions that
a user must agree to before using the service.
• APP 6 - personal information collected must be used for the purpose it was intended.
• APP 7 - personal information cannot be used for the purpose of direct marketing,
unless they provide their consent (although there are some exceptions to this).
• APP 10 - personal information collected must be maintained to ensure that it is
accurate, up-to-date and complete.
• APP 11 - must have appropriate security measures in place to protect against misuse,
interference or loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
• APP 12 - must provide personal information relating to a user if that user requests it
(although, there are exceptions).
More details of the 13 Australian Privacy Principles are described in Schedule 1 of the Privacy
Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012, which amends the Privacy Act 1988,
can be found at http://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/privacy-resources/privacy-fact-
sheets/other/privacy-fact-sheet-17-australian-privacy-principles.
Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act 1979 (TIA)
The TIA Act prohibits the interception of communications or the access of stored
communications, although law enforcement and security agencies are able to access this
information under warrant. More details can be found at
http://www.ag.gov.au/NationalSecurity/TelecommunicationsSurveillance/Pages/default.aspx
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Telecommunications Act 1997 (Cth)
If an organisation provides carriage of information over a Wi-Fi network for the public, then
that organisation may be considered as a Carrier or Carriage Service Provider under the Act
and as such has some level of obligation. The Australian Communications and Media
Authority is the regulator for radio communication spectrum and requirements as defined in
this Act.
ACMA
A Carrier License may be required by the provider of a Public Wi-Fi network if (as stated on
the ACMA website57) the provider:
� Receives any direct or indirect reward, monetary or other, for use by
others of your network equipment.
� Has a contract or any other agreement (verbal or written) with parties
involved in the use of the network, dealing, for example, with the
payment of money and performance obligations.
� Uses the network for the purpose of making a profit.
� Has an ABN for use in connection with the operation of the network.
If any of the above apply, then advice should be sought from ACMA. If there is a charge at
any stage for the service then the operator may be considered a Carrier. A charge for
merchandisers to advertise may be one way around this whilst still keeping the service free
to end users. If unsure, advice should be sought from ACMA.
Carrier Service Providers (CSPs) do not require a licence to operate but do have obligations
under the Act that may include:
• Membership of the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman scheme;
• Ability to intercept communications as required by the Telecommunications
(Interception and Access) Act 1979 (the TIA Act); and
• Protection of customer information, as detailed in the Privacy Act.
There are also other obligations for CSPs operating paid services (like the consumer
protection code and submitting compliance statements and plans to CommCom58) which
may not be directly relevant for local government Public Wi-Fi operators.
57 http://www.acma.gov.au/Citizen/Consumer-info/My-connected-home/Wireless-local-area-networks/wireless-lans-licensing-
requirements-i-acma 58 http://www.commcom.com.au/
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
If there is the ability to make calls over a Public Wi-Fi service, then there is an argument that
a CSP must also support emergency calling59.
Many organisations in Australia providing Public Wi-Fi define prohibited content as it is
defined in the national classification scheme. At present if an end user is identified as
accessing prohibited content via a Wi-Fi network then the party with the legal responsibility
for identifying the offender has not been tested60.
Other requirements
Other legislative requirements to consider when provisioning a Public Wi-Fi service include:
• Telecommunications (Consumer Protection and Service Standards) Act 1999 (Cth);
• Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth); and
• Radiocommunications Act 1992 (Cth)
Proposed changes to the access of and retention of metadata
Discussion on what constitutes metadata, and the impact of changes proposed by the
Abbott Government.
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library
/FlagPost/2014/August/Access_to_and_retention_of_Internet_metadata
59 http://www.commsalliance.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/36010/Public-Wi-Fi-Networks-information-paper-May-
2012.pdf, page 10 60 http://www.commsalliance.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/36010/Public-Wi-Fi-Networks-information-paper-May-
2012.pdf, page 12
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Terms and Conditions
It is common practice across Australian and international Public Wi-Fi service providers to
require users to accept a set of terms and conditions before using the service for the first
time. For providers in Australia, terms and conditions are a good place to meet collection
and disclosure requirements (as required under the Privacy Act) and to notify users of
limitations in liability. Terms and conditions are also a good place for outlining what level of
service will be offered, and setting service expectations.
This section summarises the salient points of Public Wi-Fi terms and conditions of services
across Australia for the purpose of identifying aspects that are common and should be
included in terms and conditions for new Public Wi-Fi services. This section concludes with
recommendations that an LGA may consider for inclusion in the terms and conditions they
use for their Public Wi-Fi service.
Internode standard61
• No guarantee over the quality or level of service
• May change the service at any time
• Not for business or commercial use
• User takes responsibility for the content they consume over the service
• Not to be used to expose minors to material unsuitable for them
• Operator may ask user for ID at any time
• Abide by all applicable law
• Users use the service at their own risk
• User indemnifies provider of any liability relating to direct or indirect damages,
negligence, etc
• No control over content
Queensland Museum62
• No guarantee of quality of service
• Requires acceptance of terms and conditions before using the service
• Unacceptable use includes: unauthorised monitoring or access to museum
information or systems
61 http://www.internode.on.net/pdf/legal/internode-hotspot-end-user-terms.pdf 62
http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/Visit+Us/Facilities/Wireless+Internet/Wireless+Internet+Public+Access+Terms+and+Conditions#.VI5
dqVWUdew
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
• Accessing, downloading or printing pornographic or other offensive material,
detailed in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995
(Cth)
• Use of filtering to block known offensive sites (inc gambling and gaming
sites). Responsibility of avoiding these sites lies with the user
• No responsibility for user devices or resulting damage that may occur from using the
service (eg due to service disruptions or downloading of viruses)
• No capture of personally identifiable information, although details of the device /
browser used is collected
• Not responsible for third parties accessing personal information over the service.
• User indemnifies the museum of any liability
• Breach of conditions may mean that the user is asked to leave the premises. Users
that refuse may be barred from future access. Illegal acts may be subject to
prosecution
Brisbane City Council (BCC)63
• No guarantee of quality of service
• Will use best efforts to ensure stable and secure access, but not obliged to do so
• Not to be used in a way that may offend the standards of the general community. In
addition, no use of websites that may cause BCC to breach any law or could interfere
with Council operations, or could reflect poorly on BCC
• Access is at own risk. No guarantee of security
• No liability for any loss
• No collecting of personally identifiable information, unless consent is given
• May collect IP and MAC address details
• Not responsible for personal information that may be collected by third parties
• User releases and indemnifies BCC
City of Sterling (WA)64
• Users under 12 years of age must have parental supervision
• User responsible for operation of Internet as it relates to their usage
• Must comply with all applicable laws including WA Classification (Publications, Film
and Computer Games) Enforcement Act and local laws.
• Retains the right to restrict access
• Not responsible for any changes made to the service or security of the service
63 http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/facilities-recreation/parks-venues/parks/park-facilities/wi-fi-parks/wi-fi-parks-terms-
conditions 64 http://www.stirling.wa.gov.au/Pages/Wi-Fi-Terms-and-Conditions.aspx
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
• No liability for loss, interruptions, etc
• Failure to comply will result in suspension from the service
• Illegal acts may also be subject to prosecution
• Reserves the right to monitor traffic
State Library of Victoria65
• Not used for any illegal, unauthorised or dangerous purpose - including copying
information that may breach copyright
• No interfering or disrupting the service
• Accepts no responsibility for security. Use at user's risk
• Activity monitored in accordance of the Information Privacy Act 2000
• Users under 12 years must be supervised
• Infringements may lead to denial of access, escorted off the premises and referral to
appropriate legal authority
Sunshine Coast Regional Council66
• Reasonable endeavours to provide a reliable, stable and secure service
• Not liable if the network becomes unstable, un-secured, slow or unavailable
• To access, need to provide email address and accept terms and conditions
• Consent to receive messages (email, SMS or MMS) - an unsubscribe feature is
provided
• Third party promotions are not endorsed by the service provider
• The service provider may provide links to third party sites and these are not endorsed
by the service provider
• Must be used in accordance with the law in an ethical and professional manner
• Disclaimer of warranties
• Limitation of liability
• User indemnifies the provider
Recommendation
In providing a set of terms and conditions for users to accept upon initial use, LGAs should
consider including:
• No guarantee over the quality of service
65 http://slv.vic.gov.au/wifi/index.cgi 66 http://www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/sitePage.cfm?code=wifi-terms
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• Information may be collected for the purposes of monitoring and improving the
service for users (including IP and MAC address of connecting devices)
• Details of data that may be collected for other purposes (for example for targeted
advertising)
• Consent for direct marketing (if this is required by your Public Wi-Fi partner)
• Must abide by applicable laws
• Accessing, downloading or printing pornographic or other offensive material,
detailed in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995
(Cth) is prohibited
• Other content filtered or blocked as deemed necessary to optimise performance
• Limitation of liability against loss or damage as a result of using the service – from
events such as downloading a virus or malware
• Indemnity against claims from third parties
This terms and conditions page would normally be provided through a captive portal, shown
for first time users. Users must acknowledge these terms and conditions before using the
service (for example by clicking an Accept button).
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Public Wi-Fi Architecture
This section discusses the elements required to fully bring a Public Wi-Fi service to
fruition. Understanding all elements required to establish a Public Wi-Fi service is important
in forming an agreement with a service provider and acknowledging the scope of
responsibility each party has.
In addition to describing the architecture elements of Public Wi-Fi, this section also includes
guidance on the design of these elements.
Mesh vs Traditional WDS
Two network topologies are commonly used in Public Wi-Fi implementations, being a
traditional Wireless Distribution System (WDS) that is similar to a hub-and-spoke approach,
and a mesh topology:
o WDS uses two modes for linking two Access Points, being bridge mode
(where two APs are connected exclusively – ie wireless clients cannot connect
to these APs) and repeater mode (where an AP repeats the signal from
another AP, effectively extending range). WDS essentially provides a hub and
spoke network topology.
o A mesh topology is where APs and clients are able to connect to each other in
a mesh topology. Mesh networks intelligently route traffic to optimise
performance and can automatically heal the network if an AP or
communications link becomes degraded or unavailable. By their very nature,
mesh networks can have a static or ad-hoc topology.
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Overall systems architecture
The 802.11 standard refers to four elements that make up Wi-Fi architecture, being67:
• Stations –any device that provides a node for communication and can be either
clients (ie end-user devices) or Access Points (APs).
• A Basic Service Set (or BSS) is formed when a set of stations connect together to form
a Wi-Fi network. These can either be independent (ie ad-hoc network between two
clients), or an infrastructure BSS (where APs are used).
• An Extended Service Set (ESS) is where two or more BSSs are connected together. Its
simplest form is an AP that has the ability to service more than one device. Each ESS
is designated by an SSID.
• A Distribution System (DS) connects APs in an ESS. Wireless distribution systems
commonly used are WDS and mesh networks.
67 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_LAN, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_distribution_system,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network
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Municipal network architecture example
The community network SFLan68, operated across the San Francisco area, envisages a three-
tier architecture, consisting of:
• Tier 1 – 5GHz radio units connected to municipal fibre or some other form of large
backhaul service. This service would be owned by an LGA.
• Tier 2 – This provides the link between tier 1 and 3 and would consist of a 5GHz and
2.5GHz flat panel antenna, the latter providing a directional Wi-Fi cloud and for
connecting to Tier 3 routers. This infrastructure would typically be run by a Not for
Profit and be crowd sourced.
• Tier 3 – End user router that generally has line of site with a Tier 2 transceiver. This is
the responsibility of the end user to provision and maintain.
Technology
Wireless Access Points. Many installations of Public Wi-Fi are looking to standardise on the
Access Point technology used to simplify support and maintenance. Dual or multi-band
Access Points provide the greatest chance of making all backhaul bandwidth available to
users. Access Points that utilise the 802.11ac standard are recommended. Technology
commonly deployed in Australia includes:
68 https://archive.org/web/sflan.php
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• Cisco Meraki69 - Developed early community wireless projects (San
Francisco). Acquired by Cisco in 2012. Provides mesh functionality.
• Openmesh70 (or refer to Nova Wireless71 as one Australian distributor) - used in the
community mesh network across Goulburn, managed by The Goulburn Group.
• Ubiquiti UniFi72 - 802.11n and ac APs, WiMAX and wireless backhaul products. Does
not support mesh networks73.
• AirTight – 802.11ac APs and cloud management. AirTight APs are mesh capable.
• EnGenius74– 802.11n and ac APs, high gain antennas and management solutions.
Engenius APs are mesh capable75 (Using EnGenius APs to build a metropolitan mesh
network).
• Aruba76 - 802.11ac APs, captive portal and network management solutions. AirMesh
product provides mesh capability77.
• Altai 78– providing antennas (including high power, long range, directional), APs,
network management and backhaul management products. APs are 802.11n
compliant.
Other mesh network offerings include:
• Commotion Wireless79 - firmware and software for flashing onto a range of wireless
routers or installing on smartphones or PCs. Most suited for community mesh
networks with a heterogeneous Access Point environment. Commotion Wireless is
an open source community mesh network solution used in Detroit districts.
• Open Garden80 - Software loaded onto PCs or smartphones that create a mesh
network using existing Wi-Fi capability. Only devices running Open Garden can
participate in the mesh. Again, this is an open source and more suited to community
mesh networks.
Backhaul81. Sufficient download bandwidth needs to be available for users to have a
relatively seamless user experience, free of noticeable lag. The amount of backhaul
69 https://meraki.cisco.com/ 70 http://www.open-mesh.com/ 71 http://www.open-mesh.com.au/ 72 http://www.ubnt.com/products/#all/wireless 73 https://community.ubnt.com/t5/airMAX-General-Discussion/Mesh-with-Nano-Station/m-p/322265#M26440 74 http://www.engeniustech.com.au/ 75 http://www.matrix.lt/articles/EnGenius-mesh-eom-8670-product.pdf 76 http://www.arubanetworks.com/ 77 http://www.arubanetworks.com/products/mesh-routers/ 78 http://www.altaitechnologies.com/?page_id=236 79 https://commotionwireless.net/ 80 https://opengarden.com/ 81 https://help.cloudtrax.com/hc/en-us/articles/202405750-Part-2-Choosing-Bandwidth-Access-Points-and-Enclosures
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bandwidth provisioned for users depends upon the types of traffic that are permitted and
the number of concurrent Public Wi-Fi connections. Firstly, a per user bandwidth
requirement is determined. The following table provides a guide on determining the
bandwidth requirements per user of varying types of traffic:
Traffic type Up (kbps) Down (kbps)
VoIP 100 100
Browsing 500 100
Email 500 500
YouTube 700 100
Skype HD 1500 1500
Netflix HD 3800 100
Another good reference is the Cisco Design Guide82. LGAs may consider blocking specific
traffic to help reduce bandwidth requirements per user.
The second step is to determine aggregate bandwidth requirements for a specific area.
Captive portal. This functionality is provided through commercial grade wireless Access
Points, such as Meraki and Openmesh. The captive portal provides a place for terms and
conditions to be accepted, and authentication to take place. Stand-alone captive portal
solutions are available, including:
• Clearpass83 - although an Aruba standalone product, they claim that Clearpass is
vendor / device agnostic.
Advertising delivery and management. Advertising delivery can help bolster the business
case for Public Wi-Fi, but if deemed too intrusive, may turn users away. Typically advertising
delivery would be provided as part of the deal if a third party (particularly an ISP) is
partnering with an LGA to provide Public Wi-Fi. Alternatively LGAs, if they choose to include
advertising as part of their Public Wi-Fi offering can partner with an advertising partner or
include a third party advertising service. Some examples to consider include:
• Socifi84 monetisation service – can include only advertising for a specific organisation
(such as an LGA) if required. An organisation receives revenue for displaying ads
from the Socifi ad network.
82 http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/wireless/aironet-1250-series/design_guide_c07-693245.html#wp9001186 83 http://www.arubanetworks.com/products/clearpass/ 84 http://www.socifi.com/en-GB/
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• SkiFii85 provides a marketing and behavioural analysis platform for Public Wi-Fi. One
example is their work at the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney86. There, users watch
a 15 sec advertising video before gaining access to the Internet. The SkiFii service
also reports to be able to push out location and context dependent advertising. Their
offering is focused on the retail sector.
Content filtering and blocking. Most Public Wi-Fi services provide a level of filtering and
blocking of inappropriate content - largely along the requirements of the national
classification scheme. This is typically performed by an LGA’s corporate network content
filtering and blocking solution, or by a third party.
Network performance monitoring. SNMP interrogation is possible with most of the above
Access Points, thus allowing integration with an LGA’s existing system monitoring platform.
In addition, sFlow/netFlow interrogation is available on most Access Points for network
performance monitoring. Alternatively, a third party product can be used, such
as LogicMonitor87.
End user security. For some providers of Public Wi-Fi (most notably, Google Wi-Fi) ensuring
the security of end users is important. Some LGAs provide details of how users can secure
their communications over their Public Wi-Fi service on their website and on the splash page
that greets new users. Two methods are commonly recommended to users:
• VPN – Establishing a VPN between the end user and the service they are accessing
over the Internet is seen as the most secure. Users can either use a corporate VPN
provided by their employer or a personal VPN provided by a third party. Examples of
personal VPN software providers with a presence in Australia include:
o Buffered88
o VyprVPN89
o Astrill90
One interesting example was Google Secure Access (GSA) released in beta by Google
in 2005 that provided a VPN connection between an end user device and Google
servers. The software is now defunct, with Google’s approach to security focusing on
85 http://www.skyfii.com/business.html 86 http://a030f85c1e25003d7609-b98377aee968aad08453374eb1df3398.r40.cf2.rackcdn.com/case-studies/cs-queen-
victoria.pdf 87 http://www.logicmonitor.com/monitoring/network-monitoring-tools/meraki-controller/ 88 http://landing.buffered.com/unblock-content-pete/ 89 http://www.goldenfrog.com/vyprvpn 90 https://www.astrill.com
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SSL. To reinforce this position, Google is encouraging websites to provide SSL
connections for regular web traffic and by doing so will increase their organic search
rankings91 .
• SSL – If establishing a corporate or personal VPN is not feasible, then
communications can be secured using SSL and is only available when consuming
content from sites that support SSL.
Design and troubleshooting
Deciding upon the location of Public Wi-Fi APs can be assisted with the use of site survey
and planning software. Such software may be particularly useful to collect information on
the volume of potential users in a particular location before installing an AP. In addition, it
may be useful to determine how buildings and structures influence the shape and site of a
hotspot. Some of the more common software used for site survey and planning include:
• Indoor - Heatmapper92, inSSIDer93 and Aerohive Planner94
• Maps of outdoor coverage of Wi-Fi APs - WiGLE95, WeFi
http://www.wefi.com/maps/ for finding other APs in a particular area or Free Wi-Fi
Finder (iOS app)96
Note that some of the above software offers Wi-Fi troubleshooting capabilities, like
identifying interference, signal overlaps, channel conflicts and configuration issues.
Wardriving is also a worthwhile technique to improve your knowledge of Wi-Fi APs and Wi-Fi
enabled devices in an area. Learn more about how to wardrive at
https://wigle.net/wiki/index.cgi?Cardinal_Rules_Of_Wardriving_FAQ. This approach may help
you determine the potential size of audience you may capture when implementing a Public
Wi-Fi AP.
Other considerations
Standardising firmware. OpenWRT97 and its code branch DD_WRT98 are open source AP
firmware solutions that are more prevalently used in community networks to standardise APs
91 http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/https-as-ranking-signal.html 92 http://www.ekahau.com/wifidesign/ekahau-heatmapper 93 http://www.inssider.com/ 94 http://www.aerohive.com/planner 95 https://wigle.net/ 96 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/free-wi-fi-finder/id307217005?mt=8 97 https://openwrt.org/ 98 http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index
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from differing manufacturers. OpenWRT (with 802.11s support depending upon the
hardware used99) and DD-WRT100 support mesh networks
Other open source AP firmware options:
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wireless_router_firmware_projects
Security suggestions for securing corporate Wi-Fi networks and an example of how
seemingly secure networks can be hacked can be found at
http://www.hackingtheuniverse.com/information-security/attack-vs-defense/attack-vs-defense-on-
an-organizational-scale/5-wireless-network
99 http://wiki.openwrt.org/doc/howto/mesh.80211s 100 http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Mesh_Networking_with_OLSR.
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Conclusion
After years of failed Public Wi-Fi projects across the globe, we are reaching a time where
there is both a financial and social imperative to adopt Public Wi-Fi solutions. Our digital
lives rely upon connectedness through the Internet. Having inexpensive and seamless access
is becoming for many a necessity, rather than a luxury. Many argue that the Internet our
newest public utility – as important as power, water, gas and the telephone.
This body of research suggests that Public Wi-Fi could be one important vehicle for
delivering this essential utility, one that can be facilitated by local government. Of any level
of government, local government is best empowered to implement practical solutions to
help the communities they serve grow and prosper.
Local government holds many of the cards telcos need to fulfil their next growth strategy –
to offload exponential growth in 3G and 4G traffic onto less expensive Wi-Fi networks.
Smart local governments will understand this, and will remain flexible in their approach to
rolling out Public Wi-Fi, potentially partnering with telcos to provide service in high traffic
retail precincts and residential areas. Local government can also overlay this with a vibrant
community network that helps people help themselves, especially in disadvantaged areas.
And, finally, local government will always be in the business of investing in great ideas that
support their local communities. Public Wi-Fi is the perfect backdrop to implementing great
local ideas in the digital world that empower and inspire.
The question you must first ask though is why Public Wi-Fi? What is important and relevant
for your LGA? And in answering this question, you will be well on your way down the road of
Public Wi-Fi.
Attachments
A. Business Model Variations
B. Glossary
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Attachment A : Business Model variations
Bus
model
Variation Prerequisites Benefits Costs Potential risks Examples and
references
Partnership
Advertising
partnership
Understand points of leverage.
Understand what you want
from a partnership.
Usually structured as a
Memorandum of
Understanding.
Direct marketing
opportunities can offset the
implementation and support
costs.
Nil Relies on a sizable captive
audience for this to be
sustainable.
Council has limited control over
changes made to the service.
San Francisco
Bay Area
Telco partnership As above.
Carrier license and
compliance requirements are
the responsibility of the third
party.
Able to use the telco
network for Council use.
Minimal or no cost.
Nil Council has limited control in
changes made to the service.
Wi-Fi Nation
ISP partnership As above As above Nil As above. City of
Melbourne
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Bus
model
Variation Prerequisites Benefits Costs Potential risks Examples and
references
Partner with other
levels of
government
As above As above Commensurate
portion of overall
cost.
As above.
Community network
Play a facilitation
role
Knowledge of what is required
to establish a successful
community network
Trust and commitment from
local business / individuals that
will participate in the service
Confirm who will have
responsibility for growing,
monitoring and supporting the
service.
Important to be clear about the
role of Council
If time is spent in getting the
model right, the network will
grow with and support the
local community.
Time for
Community
Development
department to learn
the skills they need
to engage with the
community.
Alternatively, cost
of skilled consultant
to help build
knowledge within
Council and
facilitate initial
workshops with the
community.
Limited risk as risk is borne by the
community group and business
owners / individuals providing the
service
Detroit
Invest through
grant
A community group that drives
growth, monitors and supports
the service.
As above < $5,000 per
annum
As above Goulburn
Mulwaree
Council
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Implementing Public Wi-Fi Services for Local Government
Bus
model
Variation Prerequisites Benefits Costs Potential risks Examples and
references
Self-funded
Funds committed
through Council
plan
Public Wi-Fi implementation
added as a Council Plan action.
Funds allocated.
IT team (network operations)
able to provide monitoring and
support for growing the
network and resolving issues –
if this is kept in-house.
Straightforward approach to
gaining funding and
support.
Cost of Access
Points, security
monitoring,
backhaul and
support.
Limited by how
much you can fund
from rates.
Council takes on security and
regulatory risks. Mitigated
through terms and conditions,
security controls and network
monitoring.
East Gippsland
Shire Council,
City of
Melbourne
Grants obtained
from other parties
(other govt or
private enterprise)
Clear business case and
objectives for providing a
Public Wi-Fi service.
Minimal upfront funding
required from council.
Working together with other
organisations to facilitate a
region-wide approach.
Cost of Access
Points, security
monitoring,
backhaul and
support.
As above.
In addition, not achieving the
expected benefits as detailed in
the business case
Supporting a
localised council
initiative
An idea or concept that relies
on digital media, is delivered to
mobile user devices and is
location dependent.
Engaging the community in
new ways.
Cost to design,
develop, implement
and support the
idea.
Not realising benefits in the
business case. What happens to
Public Wi-Fi once the localised
initiative reaches end of life?
South
Gippsland
Shire Council
(Coal Creek
initiative)
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Bus
model
Variation Prerequisites Benefits Costs Potential risks Examples and
references
Funding allocated. Providing more value at
Council venues that drive
participation.
Become the ISP Network infrastructure owned
by Council that has significant
excess capacity and potential
Provide another stream of
revenue
Costs associated in
splitting off a
separate ISP entity.
In most cases, ISP operations are
split off into an entity separate to
Council to limit Council risk
exposure.
City of Burnie
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Attachment B : Glossary
802.11101 – five variants are offered within this standard, and two amendments:
• b – IEEE expanded the original 1997 specification in 1999 to support faster speeds (up to 11
Mbps). It uses the same unlicensed 2.4GHz frequency as the original standard.
• a – created at the same time as the 802.11b standard, provides faster transmission rates (up to
54Mbps) with smaller transmission distances and uses the 5GHz frequency band. Devices
supporting this standard were more expensive to manufacture than 802.11b equivalents.
• g – Released in 2002, 802.11g devices provide transmission rates up to 54Mbps in the 2.4GHz
frequency band, and is backwards compatible with 802.11b devices.
• n – In 2009, the 802.11n standard was released, supporting up to 300Mbps bandwidth
through the use of multiple antennas. These devices are backwards compatible with b and g
devices. Maximum output is achieved through deploying a 5GHz 802.11n network.
• ac – supports simultaneous connections on 5GHz and 2.4GHz frequency bands and provides
backwards compatibility with b/g/n devices. It provides speeds of up to 1300Mbps in the
5GHz frequency band. This standard was ratified by IEEE in late 2012. A detailed analysis of
the benefits of migrating to 802.11ac can be found at
http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/tip/80211ac-2013-standard-ratified-What-WLAN-
planners-need-to-know
• u – an amendment to the standard to include improvements making it easier for clients to
choose and connect to the most appropriate Wi-Fi service. Published in 2011, this
amendment contains standards for network discovery and selection, quality of service
mapping, and calling of emergency services.
• s – an amendment for mesh networking for static topologies or ad-hoc networks.
Access Point (AP) – An Access Point is a device that allows many clients to connect to a network over
a wireless connection. A hotspot is the physical area where a client can obtain a wireless network
connection with the Access Point. Access Points can provide additional embedded features, including
Captive Portal, encryption and routing.
Backhaul – the high speed, high bandwidth connection a Wi-Fi network has back to the Internet, and
is thus shared with end users.
101 http://compnetworking.about.com/cs/wireless80211/a/aa80211standard.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-
2009, http://www.networkworld.com/article/2180880/tech-primers/802-11u-and-hotspot-2-0-promise-wi-fi-users-a-cellular-
like-experience.html
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Captive Portal – a web page, pages or service that a new user is redirected to when they first access a
Wi-Fi service or when a specific event occurs (eg when a user exceeds their download limit and is
redirected to a web page to purchase a voucher). User agents such as Apple’s Captive Network
Assistant can, in some cases, circumvent a captive portal if the user already has login credentials.
DHCP – Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol enables a network appliance to automatically assign an
IP address to a device within a given range or scope.
Hotspot 2.0 - allows consumers to seamlessly shift connections between wireless carriers and public
Wi-Fi hotspots102
Malware103 – software that causes damage or degrades performance of end user computing device,
servers or network infrastructure. Malware may include viruses, Trojans, and denial of service attack
software.
Municipal Wi-Fi or Muni-Fi104 - is where an entire city or area is provided with contiguous Wi-Fi
access. Adelaide and Perth are the only Australian cities that currently have a Municipal Wi-Fi service
blanketing the CBD, although Melbourne, Ballarat and Bendigo will also provide a municipal Wifi
service over the coming 12 to 18 months through the Victorian Government Public Wi-Fi initiative.
Public Wi-Fi – A wireless network offered to the general public and not constricted for use by a
particular group of people. A Public Wi-Fi service is generally free to use within limits set by the
service provider. The service may, or may not, provide advertising.
SSID – The Service Set Identifier for a wireless network. It is the public name of a wireless network
that can be seen on a user’s device when searching for available networks (unless the SSID is hidden).
An SSID can be up to 32 characters long.
SSL – Secure Socket Layer is the security protocol used for encrypting communications over the web
between client and server. The protocol relies upon a public key that is sent by the server to the user
for the purpose of encryption, and a private key that is held on the server to decrypt the information
sent by the client. An SSL certificate (held on the server) provides information about who the keys
were generated for and the trustworthiness of these keys.
VPN – A Virtual Private Network is a secure connection between a private network and a client
looking to access this network over the Internet.
102 http://www.ibtimes.com/google-plans-future-wireless-internet-one-small-business-time-1588958 103 http://www.svunwired.com/?p=details&id=50162 104 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Municipal_wireless_network
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Wardriving105 - moving through an area and searching for and logging details of Wi-Fi networks
using software (and usually a GPS device).
Warchalking106 - a set of symbols that are drawn on a nearby object (such as a building or footpath)
that denotes the presence of a Wi-Fi network. Developed by Matt Jones in June 2002 and similar to
hobo symbols107.
vWLAN – Virtual Wireless LAN provided by Adtran Bluesocket APs.
W-IDS – Intrusion Detection Solutions for Wi-Fi networks.
Wi-Fi - a computer network that generally uses spread-spectrum or frequency division multiplexing
radio to wirelessly connect end-user devices to a network108.
WiMAX109 – Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is a wireless communication standard
based on the 802.16e standard that provides 30 to 40Mbps data rates and designed to provide the
“last mile” wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL. WiMAX can use unlicensed
or licenced spectrum. Although WiMAX and Wi-Fi are not interoperable, they are often
complementary (where WiMAX provides a connection from a metropolitan backhaul network to a
user’s home, and Wi-Fi is used within the home.
WISPr – Wireless Internet Service Provider roaming is a draft protocol that allows users to roam
between Wi-Fi service providers110
WLAN – Wireless LAN.
105 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardriving 106 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warchalking 107 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobo#Hobo_signs_.28symbols.29 108 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_LAN 109 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX 110 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WISPr