ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Low-income families could receive broadband wireless fidelity (WiFi) Internet service for $100 per year—an annual savings of at least $380 compared with DSL rates—through a new University of Michigan project.

The Center for Urban Innovation, which is part of U-M’s School of Social Work, is spearheading a partnership with Detroit-area faith-based and secular non-profit neighborhood facilities to deliver Internet service and low-cost recycled computers.

WiFi’s low cost of deployment and high bandwidth capability, in conjunction with existing neighborhood facilities and staff, will make it possible for DetroitCONNECTED—a coalition of Detroit-area non-profits—to provide Internet service to low-income families for $100 per year. The service compares with digital subscriber lines (DSL), which typically costs $40 to $50 per month.

"Without a very low cost way for lower income families to get a computer and get connected to always-on broadband, the digital divide continues to broaden," said Larry Gant, a U-M School of Social Work associate professor and project coordinator.

"We’ve been watching the divide widen and create social and economic division for years. We’ve initiated numerous community and faith-based initiatives, but until WiFi came along, we just didn’t have an economically viable way to get low-income neighborhoods online," he said.

The Internet has become so integral with work, school and social lives that those who aren’t online regularly become challenged to get a competitive education, employment and access to health information, social services, news and information. Students living in low-income households participating in the program can learn more about topics discussed in class or current events by using the service.

Wi-Fi enables wireless connectivity to the Internet or to any other appliance utilizing an over-the-air interface between a wireless computer and a base station, or between two wireless computers. Signals can be beamed through walls, floors and ceilings through a wireless connection. This eliminates the cost, time, labor and expense of drilling holes between rooms, snaking a cable through the holes in walls, floors and ceilings and connecting the machines, Gant said.

The University’s Center for Urban Innovation will secure donors for the project, distribute components and provide staff for training.

This model project, which was introduced last month at the Wireless Internet and Municipal Government Summit in Atlanta, could be expanded nationwide. In many older cities, the cost of providing high-speed Internet service requires massive hard wiring of homes to a base station. The costs are high. For instance, wiring a 100-unit housing development for high speed broadband costs about $100,000, Gant said. Deploying a WiFi network costs less than $20,000.

The current proposal has a single antenna providing WiFi access within a 1.5-mile radius, providing theoretical connectivity to 2,000 households.

Garrett Myers, business technology strategist and acting CEO of CLEARlink.org, a Detroit-based non-profit that distributes corporate surplus inventories to non-profit organizations, came across the concept of neighborhood deployment while providing low-cost computers to Detroit’s churches and social services organizations.

"When word got around that CLEARlink had packs of 10 Pentium computers with Windows licenses for less than a thousand dollars, we found ourselves delivering them to dozens of churches and community centers that were setting up and operating training and access centers for people in their neighborhood," he said.

Myers said the challenge was to create an inexpensive business model that was self-sustaining. Church and community center leaders feel confident about obtaining $15,000 to $25,000 through grants and other contributions to install a WiFi distribution network that could reach 50 to 200 neighborhood families "We think DetroitCONNECTED is a unique and well-conceived plan that will be a very viable model for U.S. communities," said Daniel Aghion, managing director of the Wireless Internet Institute in Boston.

For more information, contact Gant at (734) 763-5990 or lmgant@umich.edu; Aghion at (617) 439-5400 or daghion@w2i.org; and Myers at (313) 882-2249 or GMyers@clearlink.org.

Related links: Gant

CLEARlink.org: Wireless Internet Institute