UPDATE: I, like many people on this issue, have been erroneously spreading around some misinformation. I’ve cleaned up a few portions.
Most of my original argument isn’t really valid anymore.
Here’s my new argument, short and sweet form: Don’t cut MTN’s budget to fund the “Digital Portals” project. The Digital Portals project is over-engineering a simple issue with a complicated solution with old technology. Crippling MTN’s budget does the opposite of what the city is trying to achieve with the Digital Portals: giving Minneapolis’ communities access and training to communicate broadly in the city.
There’s a lot of discussion and misinformation about Minneapolis’ 2008 Recommended Budget that will cut an additional $100,000 out of MTN’s operating budget. This recommendation by the mayor is pretty nasty considering that $50,000 was already cut from MTN’s budget but more importantly, this $100,000 cut is intended to fund a “Wireless Portals Project” run by USI Wireless created by The Digital Access Project being run by someone.
How I see it, the One issue is that MTN is an independent non-profit that centers itself around encouraging creation of and access to programs and information. They’re not in the cable or internet service provider business. For over twenty years, they have been Minneapolis’ primary conduit for citizen media. On the contrary, USI Wireless and Comcast are for-profit service providers. Why take money away from the partially city-funded organization that’s suited for creating the content for and with the community and giving it to a program that’s operated by a provider of not content but connectivity completely new project that somewhat overlaps what MTN is already doing a different way?
Currently, Comcast significantly funds MTN through the city. From Section 4 of Minneapolis’ 2008 Recommended Budget (PDF):
Comcast collects this “franchise fee�? from subscribers to help fund public services such as police, fire and public works as they relate to maintenance and regulation of the City’s rights-of-way. Comcast also collects an “access fee�? from subscribers to support public, educational and government (PEG) access programming. It is estimated Comcast will collect $350,000 from subscribers for the access fee in 2008. There are ten PEG channels in the City of Minneapolis: four public, three educational and three government channels.
Although funds from Comcast’s Access Fee are earmarked and go to MTN, Comcast’s Franchise Fee generates around $2.9 million. While this goes to the city’s general fund, some of that money goes to MTN. One could argue that some of this money from Comcast is being redirected from MTN to a program operated by Comcast’s direct competitor in Minneapolis for internet service, USI Wireless. (ed: Edited for clarity) On one hand, I’m surprised that Comcast hasn’t jumped in and made a case to argue against this $100,000 cut, but on the other hand Comcast’s obligation on these access and franchise fees may be going away soon and they may simply not want to be involved. I wasn’t able to find a strong, linkable source on this. If you know more about Comcast’s obligations or lack thereof in the future, please post in the comments.
More from the 2008 Recommended Budget:
The Mayor recommends reducing the Minneapolis Telecommunications Network contract by $100,000 on a one-time basis; this funding is directed to the Minneapolis Wireless Portals Project. The department will reduce its capital expenditures by $25,000, a reduction not anticipated in the financial direction for 2008.
What’s the Minneapolis Wireless Portals Project? Good question. Many people still don’t understand what the Wireless Portals are. When I was watching the Ways and Means hearing discussing this on October 31st, Councilmember Scott Benson joked that he should be dressed up like Gary Schiff from the 70’s because he was unaware of what these portals are and what they mean. On November 16, there’s a Wireless Expo at City Hall that will help explain this.
From what I understand, The Wireless Portals Project is essentially what I’ll call a “Minneapolis Intranet.” It’s what everyone will have access to when they can connect to Wireless Minneapolis anywhere in the city. It’ll have messages from the community, city departments and city hall, and some form of community websites and programming. While this Intranet is free, if you want to access the Internet using Wireless Minneapolis, you need to order service. I would assume that The content located on the Wireless Portals Project will be accessible through the Internet even if you don’t use Wireless Minneapolis. A big mistake if that’s not the case, in my opinion.
UPDATE: More on the Wireless Portal Project is in this hard-on-the-eyes PowerPoint presentation. You can also watch a video of Catherine Settanni giving this presentation. (Thanks, Chuck)
It makes sense to me that MTN should be partnered with both Comcast and USI Wireless to continue MTN’s mission of providing city and citizen media on both platforms.
MTN as an organization already has an infrastructure for training citizens on creating and producing programs and other content. They already have a strong reach with underrepresented communities and have staff and content that’s very diverse. Being they are in part funded by the City of Minneapolis already, I think it would be a waste to not have them working with USI Wireless for developing, from what I understand, comparatively similar or parallel content that they currently put on cable television. Cutting MTN’s budget doesn’t seem to be the right answer for how I understand it.
In addition to all the citizen-created Minneapolis content, there are cable channels run by MTN devoted to broadcasting city council, school board and other meetings and events. Why not utilize the same crews that Minneapolis is already helping pay for push the same content to the Wireless Portals Project?
UPDATE: The more that I learn about it, the Wireless Portals Project certainly does a lot of different things that MTN does, but I don’t think is very necessary or effective at this time considering there is no available funding for it. Cutting it out of MTN shouldn’t have even been on the table, in my strong opinion.
Also, I’m finding a bunch of reasons that make me not really want to be involved. What a huge mess.
To learn more, the City Pages has a year old article that covers some important history on MTN and their relationship with Minneapolis. Peter Fleck on his PF HYPER Blog does a great job covering Wireless Minneapolis and has some of the contracts and documents regarding Wireless Minneapolis at pfhyper.com. Over at the E-Democracy Forums, everyone else chimes in (some of the information here is not accurate). Have a strong opinion? Contact your city council member.
