Organization pulls Kensington community together by spreading wifi outdoors

Connecting communities is something that Alex Wermer-Colan the executive director of Philly District Wireless is passionate about His organization s mission is to equip as much of North Philly with free WiFi as it can We are trying to build a large-scale infrastructure that s shared by the district he announced That might mean that your house is sharing WiFi with your neighbor and that if you live in the house you may be able to connect to our setup and walk around the neighborhood without ever getting disconnected The scheme has a unique focus and has seen particular major successes Wifi providers often concentrate on indoor connectivity and ignore the outdoors Philly Locality Wireless focuses on filling in the gaps between indoor internet in various buildings This means equipping local parks society streets and gardens with free wireless networks Philly Society Wireless is located in Norris Square Park Billy Penn not long ago got to tour their existing infrastructure and see why its organizers call these services a vital right The organization s basement offices contain lots of setup equipment and encouraging signs Violet Comber-Wilen Billy Penn The process Part of the organization s success depends on access to the properties around constituents spaces In order to work properly equipment is built on a line of sight plane between the rooftops of different buildings Oftentimes that means getting permission from owners of these buildings to get up on the roof revealed Leanne Przybylowski region outreach manager at Philly Neighborhood Wireless She mentioned the cooperation of a local restaurateur who owned a building that sat in the perfect location to extend wifi organization to the surrounding area So he announced yes to providing internet access for his neighbors and for this neighborhood in general even though we weren t able to provide it inside for him because he has a business Przybylowski explained So that s an example of you know a public member who is willing to use their support or their property in this occurrence to provide for the rest of the district which is great right While devices are sometimes too small for the eye to see rooftops like the one on this building in North Philly can contain line of sight connectivity devices that connect the surrounding area Violet Comber-Wilen Billy Penn Wermer-Colan explained that coverage often requires cooperation between residents and that he is surprised by how multiple people will say yes to requests to use their building to host equipment The tool is modular meaning it is easier to install than standard internet cables revealed Eugene Ryoo a technician for Philly Region Wireless The footprint is very small he noted If we really needed to we could go up there and take all that down in two hours or three hours and we wouldn t have to tear up the street Around the perimeter of Norris Square Park there are various Philly Locality Wireless devices Selected are lodged in third-story windows or on rooftops of local businesses while others are perched on the side of a building or a rooftop garden This allows the devices to work together to provide continuous coverage of an area The need for outdoor internet The internet is an essential tool for work and school and access is central outdoors as well as indoors Przybylowski declared I never thought about the internet as something that could spread between walls but obviously it can she reported Why would it be restricted by four walls I think we have this idea of you re in a private space and the internet for that space is just in that space and it can t go anywhere else And that s not accurate at all For people experiencing homelessness or without stable housing outdoor wifi can be the only option The organization has numerous kinds of outdoor infrastructure that can handle weather wear and tear Violet Comber-Wilen Billy Penn This can be especially significant for youth disclosed Xena Stearos the coordinator for Norris Square Neighborhood Project which provides after-school and summer programs including population gardens for local youth I inevitably think of it in terms of the youth we serve and the people who are working in our gardens or hang out in the spaces around our gardens and how that is available for maybe completion of homework or the ability to look something up or contact somebody if needed if you don t have your regular cellular system she mentioned She explained wifi is especially fundamental for schoolchildren who may need to fill out forms or complete tasks via the internet even when hanging out outdoors We re in a time where wifi is a necessity she explained It s not just a want to be able to get access to certain forms if you need help with things and you don t have an advancing asset who could print them for you Being able to have wifi to look those things up online or fill out different applications it s beneficial and a need Philly Group Wireless leaders work out of the Norris Square Neighborhood Project which offers vital locality tools for the surrounding neighborhood Violet Comber-Wilen Billy Penn Piloting the initiative in this neighborhood has been helpful to the surrounding district reported Andria Bibiloni the executive director of the Norris Square Neighborhood Project We were working with communities where all of our youth are eligible to receive free school lunch she mentioned Largest part of them do have cellphones but they re on their parents plans or whatever And there are a lot of seniors also in our region who might not otherwise have access So I think piloting this here and making it available here is just something that makes the internet more accessible to people when it otherwise would be a challenge She explained she hopes to see this project expand to other areas Being connected everywhere is a need in this day and age explained Sascha Meinrath the Palmer Chair in Telecommunications at Penn State University and an expert in broadband It s not just about being able to buy cheap diapers and get plane tickets fast he mentioned of internet access It s about applying for jobs paying taxes and being connected to a social life In essence it s about the quality of life economic activity and tuition and this Meinrath emphasized not having internet or accessibility in and around a home can also devalue it If you don t have connectivity your house is worth less so you re accumulating less wealth in that domain he disclosed Facts has shown that it costs a household somewhere around a year to not be online which is to say this really translates to a pocketbook issue as well as a general quality of life issue The wifi framework can be used in means beyond Googling a trivia question Przybylowski explained It can improve locality wellness Another device that we ve installed is called a purple air monitor she commented So a purple air monitor very clearly monitors and tells you if it is safe to be outside Also it provides figures around air impurity The organization s purple air monitors are an example of devices that can help the setting but require WiFi connections Violet Comber-Wilen Billy Penn These devices are part of what s called the internet of things or IOT meaning measurement devices that assessment conditions to a central database Another unexpected feature of the Norris Square configuration Art Individuals can scan a QR code to view an interactive exhibit So with a particular app on your phone Przybylowski stated you can scan these photos and then what will pop up is a video and it s the people in the photos storytelling and sharing something that s pivotal to them or something that s relevant to their cultural experience here in Philadelphia or here in the garden or things like that The problems Philly Region Wireless is covering parts of Kensington but they can only do so much so fast noted Wermer-Colan Philly Group Wireless equips multiple parts of North Philly including the district gardens around Norris Square Park with connectivity Violet Comber-Wilen Billy Penn Our biggest trouble is truly the demand for this work and for this connectivity far outstrips our ceiling to provide those services he reported The biggest challenge in expanding these kinds of programs is lack of guidance Meinrath commented Speaking to the Billy Penn unit from D C where he was advocating for support for increased broadband guidance he explained federal and state governments have also been slow to invest in appropriate information Almost every other highly industrialized nation is investing heavily in bridging the digital divide Meinrath disclosed Why the United States is spending time and vitality to rescind the marginal successes that we have had that s mind-boggling to me He noted the U S has continually made its digital divide bigger while other countries are closing theirs Another challenge Meinrath explained is the lack of details around internet challenges in the population Within the Philly Region Wireless project we are serving a public that is systematically and consistently year after year underserved he mentioned And according to official measures that complication absolutely doesn t exist So it s very hard to address a matter you don t acknowledge as existing in the first place According to the city s majority of newest material there are still several households that don t have any type of broadband access In of households had broadband of any type which includes services such as cell facility or satellite This means that of Philadelphians are living without broadband of any type Meinrath emphasized more coherent national and statewide policies would be helpful to addressing this dilemma Even so Wermer-Colan explained the city has consistently been supportive of the effort The city has supported us from the beginning he revealed The first grant we received was from the Digital Literacy Alliance in and they provided us a grant for engaging with immigrant communities and second language English learners And our goal was to start building out this pilot project in Norris Square and since then we ve regularly partnered with the city However he explained state laws can often limit what can be done to establish further connectivity One piece of crucial context is that in Pennsylvania it is illegal for the city to build a municipal internet arrangement he reported There are states across the country where there are laws in place that block cities from building inhabitants internet That is not the city s fault That is not a just law It should not exist The Pennsylvania law that made it harder for cities to establish their own high-speed Internet networks is still in place in the present day The law essentially made it harder for city networks to compete with the city s dominant telecommunications providers This can complicate the establishment of streamlined services Philly District Wireless aims to expand Internet services as much as achievable despite sometimes stringent state laws Violet Comber-Wilen Billy Penn Wermer-Colan explained expanded phone utility can be an vital component of increasing access to services However he mentioned the work phone companies may do to establish further services and wireless can still leave out the outdoor capabilities PCW works hard to provide Verizon is going to be providing internet to all of Philadelphia s parks and rec centers he reported But there s a really critical caveat to that plan as I understand it They are not providing outdoor internet They are only doing internet inside the park and rec center Our whole thing is people need outdoor internet They need to be able to access internet from the park What if another pandemic happens and you can t go inside the building The future Philly District Wireless and area partners alike are hopeful that this project can expand beyond the neighborhoods where it started But as Wermer-Colan explains installing wifi outdoors is complicated It can require accessing multiple properties and getting up on rooftops of private businesses which can take a lot of coordination A lot of our work is about negotiating with real estate orders and oftentimes we re installing at a location like where somebody lives and it s their only property he stated So we make a few progress but it s not like they can give us access to more properties Wermer-Colan explained a big part of expansion would be further access to property which the city could help with Nobody owns more property distributed across the city in a consistent manner than the city he declared We don t charge anything of the neighborhood and we also are not prepared to pay for access to real estate for the same reason We are a thoroughly charitable organization If the city were to say to us You can leverage every parks and rec center to build out outdoor wife If they were to say to us You could use the SEPTA Rail line in Kensington to build out your wifi it would perfectly transform the organization s threshold Philly Public Wireless helps to equip areas around The Kensington Inhabitants Library with WiFi along with other society organizations Violet Comber-Wilen Billy Penn While people may view Philly District Wireless as a tech organization Przybylowski explained it is providing much more It s a lot more than just tech right she inquired We re building a district supply that can then facilitate other society materials that can help invest in existing communities in methods that they haven t been able to do without the citizens internet or open internet that s available for everybody PCW s services are available to residents in the North Philadelphia neighborhoods of Fairhill Kensington and Norris Square They can request free wireless setup or volunteer to host an antenna to connect their neighbors or learn more about Philly Neighborhood Wireless s connection process The post Organization pulls Kensington district together by spreading wifi outdoors appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY