Reviewer: Anonymous

A. Is the subject matter relevant?

The question of sustainability of Community Networks (CNs) is very relevant for this journal. There has been actually a special issue in this journal exactly on this topic, Altenative Internets, http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-9-alternative-internets/

B. Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?

The paper presents three interesting, and diverse between them, case studies of Community Networks in the area of LA. It identifies the main reasons that led to their eventual failure and proposes a “public good framework”. This seems to imply a sufficient investment from local authorities and other stakeholders that would guarantee the seamless operation of the network and the abundance of resources.

However, there is no evidence that the model that the authors have in their mind has actually worked somewhere else in the world, and it sounds in parts more like wishful thinking. In reality, there are many CNs around the world that have been more successful, using different “models”, and also a significant literature on the topic from different disciplinary perspectives which the authors seem to ignore.

As starting points, I could recommend a recent report by the netCommons project on existing CNs and their organization (including the question of sustainability), http://netcommons.eu/sites/default/files/attachment_0.pdf, and a collection of related resources here: http://diynetworking.net

C. Are there any noticeable problems with the authorÕs means of validating assumptions, interpreting data or making judgments?

No, but the whole treatment is more journalistic than scientific.

D. Is the article well written?

The article is well written except being a little too “introductory” in parts and with a few repetitions, while at the same time missing a large body of literature on the topic.

E. Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?

I would reduce the discussion on why Internet access is important today (as more or less obvious), the value of semi-structured interviews, and perhaps also the introduction on public goods.

In any case, I would keep the “public good framework” only if it is presented in a more realistic way and compared with the “commons framework” proven to be really successful in the case of community networks like guifi.net in Catalonia.

Having said this, I really enjoyed reading this paper and I would like to see it published. Although I have been working in this area for many years I had never heard of these case studies and they do provide important lessons for the question of sustainability of CNs.

Summary

Would you recommend:

• Accepting the paper if suggestions for major changes are addressed

Please summarize suggestions for improving the paper:

• Less “introduction”, more rigorous argumentation on the proposed public good framework, and how it relates to existing work
• It would be interesting to know to what extent the “local services” offered  where actually used and considered really valuable and in general include some more  “qualitative” findings through the interviews, as promised in the introduction.

Reviewer: Peter Troxler

I enjoyed reading this article as it presents three intriguing cases of community WiFi initiatives that each in its own manner faltered. Authors have collected empirical material through interviews and document analysis, i.e. triangulating their data. As a whole, the article reads well, yet it comes across as a more journalistic narrative than a multiple case study aiming for policy suggestions (“public good framework”).

Article title: Good intentions: A public good analysis of government (dis)investment in three Los Angeles community broadband projects

=> I’d suggest to call it “community WiFi projects”

=> I am uncertain if the term “public good analysis” is not too prominent in the title as the cases are more about  the importance of attaining and sustaining public funding for the sustainability of community WiFi projects; and the authors suggest that public funding is warranted by the generation of public goods and their positive externalities. However, these are hardly addressed in the case studies (see below, C)

A. Is the subject matter relevant?

The subject matter is relevant–what are contributing factors for success/failure of community-based/-oriented Internet access project

B. Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?

I think that the treatment of the subject matter is interesting. The perspective of the article could, however, benefit from at least naming a few European community WiFi projects (e.g. FreiFunk in Berlin) and other publicly funded WiFi coverage initiatives, such as parks in Paris, city of Helsinki, etc.

C. Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s means of validating assumptions, interpreting data or making judgments?

The “public goods framework” is the most problematic aspect of the article. While authors summarize opinions about Internet access being a public good (or not) it remains unclear why they want to stick to the public goods perspective. In the discussions of each case this perspective is insufficiently used. For the Little Tokyo case authors say “the positive impacts…were ephemeral” (p. 16) and then argue about lack of resources and staff. Similarly for the Open Mar Vista case, authors state the project “had the potential to spur profound social and economic public goods” (p. 21) but then argue that the city “clung to the status quo” (p. 21). Case three is all about “the loss of potential public goods” (p. 25).

I doubt if this could be repaired: authors would need to demonstrate that at least some public good effects were produced by the initiatives.  This data would need to be found in the existing interview material as additional data collection would appear to be onerous and time consuming.

I notice that this comment might come from a bias not looking at the tables when reading the article, see also comment under E.

Still it feels awkward to read the authors’ conclusion that “these case studies highlight the need for a ‘big picture’ approach” and that “community mesh networks require aal these elements in order to produce economic and social public goods”, claims that findings just do not support.

This does not mean that the cases would not provide valuable insights into the establishment and operation of community WiFi projects and its failures. They are three examples of what effective pitfalls are in successful and sustainable deployment of community WiFi: underestimating technical complexity, underestimating service demands, dependency from government funding and lack of business model, bureaucracy and red tape, embezzlement, just to name a few.

In that perspective it could be beneficial to compare the Los Angeles failures to the apparent San Francisco succes briefly mentioned (p. 11).

From a technology point of view it is unclear if in all cases indeed a mesh network was deployed. I’d suggest authors clarify that with someone with a tech background.

Research questions are not referred to clearly in the discussion and conclusion. Similarly, research method are not referred to in the description of the cases.

D. Is the article well written?

The article is generally well written.  The numerous abbreviations for various local authorities however hampers the flow.  It might be an idea to include, at the start of the section with the three case studies, a table naming those authorities, their remit and their abbreviation.

A point of concern is the terminology around “broadband”, “community wireless initiatives”, “free open mesh network” etc. (see also the third point under C above).

The case studies could be improved by giving them the same structure, e.g. starting with the demographics of the area, then addressing the inception of the initiative, its development and demise.

E. Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?

The introduction on public and private goods is too long–particularly given the fact that the decision why to proceed with a “public goods framework” is not argued and probably not even very helpful (see C, above).

In the method section, I miss information on how the three cases were selected and how the authors proceeded to sample their interview partners.

In the cases it is not always obvious which data comes from interviews and which from document analysis.

I am wondering if the article could be organised slightly differently, presenting the three case studies as one block and collating the discussion across all three case studies, together with the summary provided in tables 1 and 2. I strongly suggest to elaborate on the content of these tables in the text. This would also help to strengthen the conclusions section.

Completely missing from the text is any critical reflection on the study, its approach and the power (or lack of it) of its findings. For instance, a “public goods framework” as part of a government funding strategy is obviously just one possible answer to overcome the financial challenges, generating alternative revenue streams or offloading cost to beyond GDP economy activities are other possible answers.

Summary

Would you recommend:

• Accepting the paper if suggestions for major changes are addressed

Please summarize suggestions for improving the paper:

• broaden the perspective beyond the “public goods framework”
• revisit the organization of the article
• critically reflect on the contribution of your study