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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'"
I think the idea of city wide WIFI is nice, but how is it paid for? Do people still have cable modem at home? (or that silly phone line thing)
With whole city wifi.. will people even use land lines for home telephone?
This town will soon become a favorite stop for people looking to anonymously release viruses into the wild.
"completely secure computing environment". Hahhahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha... *whipes tears*
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.
Isn't it inherently insecure since the public can access it? What are they going to do... register MAC addresses of adapters? What are they going to do when those are spoofed? I think that wide ranging public access to the internet via 802.11 anything is a bad idea. Is anyone else with me on this? What's the motivation for doing this to an entire town?
In other news, Grand Haven, Michigan has been experiencing an unusually large growth rate in specialty computer stores, comic book stores and other geeky novelty stores. Asked about this unusual growth, mayor Gaven Hrand replied, "We don't understand it either, but we have noticed that most of the operators of these stores know each other and lug around quite a bit of equipment when they aren't watching their shops."
On an unrelated but also interesting note, the FBI recently decided to place a district office in Grand Haven, citing the nice weather.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
So how many computers will be cached up in my network neighborhood under "Workgroup" or "MSHome"?
I live in Chaska Minnesota and we have had city run wifi internet access for a few months now. It's run by the City and it costs $15.99 a month. If you'd like more information, check out http://www.chaska.net/
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.