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Nation's First City-Wide WiFi Network Completed
According to a reader rockwellpa, Grand Haven, Michigan has recently completed the United States' first truly city-wide WiFi nework. According to the press release, "Other cities have announced intent to build similar networks or have announced partial deployments; in contrast, the Grand Haven implementation, by Ottawa Wireless Inc., is the first full and complete city-wide WiFi deployment in the country. 'As the first WiFi city in America, Grand Haven has truly lived up to its name in the Internet era, as we now allow anyone anywhere to connect to the Internet and roam the city and waterways in a completely secure computing environment'"
always-on broadband Internet starts at $19.99 for 256 kbps, and unlimited mobile VoIP calling is $29.99
In countries where there is only one telo, this kind of deployment might be one way to get around the telephone grid and compete in the once-me-only market.
Uselessful technology (Air-Charged
It's been around for a long time . . .
People used to make lesiure suits out of it and its still used as tire cord in most tires in the US.
But perhaps its more familiar by a tradename . . .
polyester
Aspen Colorado had the first city-wide WiFi Network running in 1997. It was a private network built by Sun Microsystems. It was running 802.11 (not a/b/g) at 2Mbps.
Half Moon Bay, in California was had this at least a year ago, and there was even a story on the Science Channel about it!
Fredericton (capital of Canadian province of New Brunswick) has WiFi acces throughout the city and best of all it's free! http://www.muniwireless.com/archives/000169.html
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
They attached them to telephone poles across the city. They're hoping to widen the range over the next couple of years. One cool thing: You can surf the web in your boat off the coast of Lake Michigan. I forget how far off the beach, but I want to try it.
Connections up to 1 Mbps and per-day pricing options are also available."
RTFA
I like microcars
this answered a lot of the questions i had...http://www.walkersands.com/Grand-Haven-WiFi- FAQ.htm what kinda web publisher puts the FAQ at the top, above the title in "ad space"?
makes it very skippable.
scott king
Lots of small cities/town have done this.
Hermiston, Oregon (popultion about 13,000, a litte larger than Grand Haven,) has had this for over a year. Newsweek even proclaimed that town the most Unwired back in June.
Oh, I see. Because it's not done by the city of Hermiston, but rather covers the entire 600 square-mile county, it's just the first county, not the first city. After all, Grand Haven only covers *SIX* square miles, not six hundred.
The second phase is just finishing, which will add another 200 square miles, and another seven cities. So maybe being the first 'seven city area' doesn't qualify each of the seven to be the 'first city', as Grand Haven is claminig.
Psh. Just some grandstanding. Being the first to claim you're first does not mean you are first.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Illinois also gets snow, though not as much as Michigan, so our community wireless project makes a point of waterproofing nodes. The card is enclosed in a really tough container, and they're using a combination of electrical tape and plumbers goo to waterproof the connections.
Not to mention he posted it just to show his GroupShares spam ad.
artlu@artlu.net
Eric Karch
eric.karch@lawyer.com
1221 Brickell Ave. Suite 900
Miami, FL 33131
(305) 377 8767 (FAX)
Heh, the IP his site resolves to reverse-resolves to some Miami bail bonds company.
Of course, seeing as how the company is in Florida, it would not be wise for anyone to do business with stock scam artists.
I see the post referencing my deployments in LA & TX - thanks Entity1633. Actually - not to toot my own horn, there are several towns in this region of the US that have city-wide WiFi. In addition to the TWO citywide Fastline http://www.fastlineinternet.com/ networks that have been running for over a year now(Vivian, LA & Linden, TX) another group NETWI http://www.netwi.org/ has deployed city-wide WiFi across Queen City & Atlanta, Texas. NETWI are working on other cities in East Texas. In addition, there are at least three other WISP's in this region actively deploying citywide WiFi. All of us use LocustWorld software & off-the-shelf hardware. Still, I applaud these guys. What they have done is to be commended.
The question is: Will the Telcos allow such a thing to happen?
I know in Utah, (of all places where the vile Orin Hatch is elected into office by Republician Religious sheep (yeah yeah, Flamebait I know)), both the local phone company (QWest) and Comcast are loobying HARD in the Utah legeslature to stop UTOPIA (a coallition of local cities to impliemnt FTTH).
bout the only good thing Provo is doing is implimenting there own seperate FTTH system that is a basis for the more generalized UTOPIA FTTH that other Utah cities are attempting to impliment.