Slashdot Mirror
Chicago To Consider City-Wide Wireless Network
Mitchell writes "Chicago Indymedia reports on developments pertaining to community internet in Chicago. A press release from the Center for Neighborhood Technology reports that the city's Finance Committee has commissioned a study to explore the possibility of low-cost wireless internet across the city of Chicago, and reserve Chicago's right to establish a citywide Wi-Fi network. It could run into efforts underway now in the state capital by Big Telecom to shut out muni Internet in Illinois." Several readers also pointed to the Chicago Tribune's story on this possibility, including efforts to head off regulation which would make municipal Wi-Fi difficult.
Of course, that'll also have the effect of putting more people on the internet, which will result in Googles having to have to beef up their search indices on "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Bears", "Ditka", and "Polish Sausage".
How will MSN respond? fp
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
More than 100 U.S. municipalities are considering deploying wireless city-wide networks. In this article, Network Computing's Dave Molta contends that such networks will stifle competition and will be an expensive mistake.
6 0300027
more here:
http://informationweek.mobilepipeline.com/
The Bean is no more than a monstrous Wi-Fi hax0r antenna!
Something else to damage our DNA?
in three days, we'll read a story about how the Illinois legislature is banning municipal wireless.
grandfather clause. It is sad that they have to rush this to implementation just to beat the legislation out the door.
I'm amazed that neither San Francisco (who was also thinking of this idea) or Chicago are worried about people messing with these city wide wi-fi networks. Can anyone help give further insight into that problem?
I just think it would possibly be an issue when they have people connecting and then more "computer literate" people scanning the networks for files, boredom (malice), etc.
Ubuntu, the way linux should be.
Try Ubuntu FREE! --
To sum up 90% of the upcoming posts
"This will show those monopolistic telcos"
"Those monopolistic telcos will stop this, damn them"
"This stifles business and is a wicked commie plot"
"Its socialism not communism, you dumb rednecks"
"This is all Bush's fault"
"Why are you bringing politics into this"
"Local government should stay out of the business sector"
"You mean like public roads"
"This is a even better/worse plan than Philly, they really suck/know what they're doing"
"Will they use OSS?"
In Pennsylvania the state runs the liquor stores. That's why the first thing you see when crossing to New Jersey is about a dozen liquor stores.
As Dave Molta's article states/ 60300027
http://informationweek.mobilepipeline.com
muni WiFi is a bad idea. Many here are mentioning the waste of money, etc. But what about the choice of technology? The article says they want to deploy this with Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi was NOT designed as a wide area network technology. You only have 11 channels to work with and, realistically, only 3 because they overlap in the spectrum.
What about interference with user's home networks? It's bad enough that every Joe Computer has a wireless gateway set up in his room, but now those default-configured devices are going to suffer from an a/b/or g network flyin around the whole city.
The limitations of WiFi will cause a terrible quality of service, probably equating to slow dial up speeds with many disconnects as multiple users are trying to share this limited bandwidth.
Not to mention that it is difficult to imagine that the government is actually going to support and maintain this deployment as they should. Seems as if they are discussing setup costs and not Total Cost of Ownership.
I live in Chicago and this is a BAD idea. All I need is one of the MOST corrupt governments in the U.S. competing the private telecoms out of business and for all intents and purposes controlling the INTERNET in Chicago.
use this new network for *GASP* playing VIOLENT GAMES! http://news.com.com/Illinois+seeks+to+restrict+vio lent+games/2100-1043_3-5593248.html
I doubt that the city would run its own mail servers... if they don't filter port 25, drive-by spamming would be facilitated, and if they do, the utility of the service will be dramatically affected for the "common man", unless everyone gets a webmail account.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
with the very likely (lack) of security on this deployment, every wardriving script-kiddie who wants to cause some havoc will be there having a grand ol time.
See you all in Chicago!
That lasted for about 6 months. Then December came, along with about a foot of snow. This covered up all the warchalking runes and made finding open networks a little harder.
Unfortunately, war-pissing never caught on, and war-chalking has become much less popular (see, e.g.: ) so I bought a little handheld wireless sniffer, and it's worked ok for those times I was desperate for an internet connection. But a municipal wireless network would be 100 times better. It would save a lot of time having to sniff around, and would have much more consistent and reliable coverage.
And the result is rather the opposite; a long list of companies emerged as a direct result of that: AnyWi, Gandalf, Wido and half a dozen others. Making Leiden and the direct region something of a WiFi focal point.
I would not call that effect "stiffling"... the only few people stiffed may be some big incumbents which where to slow to move.
Dw
... I wholeheartedly support plans by cities to deploy their own wireless networks. Especially those cities and counties that private companies have failed to adequately supply. The market has become too uptight and created an artificial scarcity, and it needs competition from municipalities to shake it out of its complacency.
The new regulations outlawing such measures are completely brain-dead, and do harm to the competitive environment while espousing "libertarian" values. Hell, even the venerable CATO Institute has become nothing more than a shill for corporations, and lost its ability to be objective and realistic.
From my perspective as a staunch Libertarian it is becoming increasingly clear that mixed economies provide the best soil for healthy competition, and that they do a better job of supporting the human and technological infrastructure required to foster a healthy economy.
Now, let the real competition begin!
-- thinkyhead software and media
State and local taxes are deductable. Any city that provides a service like this is getting a tax subsidy from the rest of us.
So, from a strictly self-interest stand point, cities should continue to provide more and more services, since that will lower their overall Federal tax burden.
Of course, that means more federal debt and eventually more taxes for the rest of us.
So the next time you wonder how it is a city can have high taxes and not be hurt much economically, remember that the federal government is making it possible.
This entry by an economist comments on the situation in New York City.
Folks,
Put aside your geekiness for a minute (I'm a huge WiFi user, too) and consider the unfairness and inefficiency of government-supplied Wifi.
My argument against municipal Wifi is two-fold:
1) Internet access is a "nice to have" convienence but hardly a public necessity (like roads, schools, etc.). By creating a government-sponsored network, you inevitably impose taxes on many folks who will never use, nor want, a wireless network.
2) Government rarely does anything right, except create more government. I don't know about Chicago but my city (San Antonio, TX) can't even fill the countless deep potholes that are springing up everywhere. Do you trust these people to deliver you a secure, fast, stable network? Do you want to pay *THEM* to deliver this network?
Wireless networks are best left to commercial entities. If the city government wants to do something to promote a private, low-cost municipal network, lobby your city council members to provide free/reduced-cost access of utility/light poles to the deploying company in exchange for subsidized access fees for the poor (or better yet, low fees all across the board).
Where I'm from, Calgary Alberta (Canada!), we have a 'wireless city' http://wifinetnews.com/archives/001821.html
:)
Or at least, so is the 'hype', but let me explain how it is:
- Only a small portion of the city is, notably a portion of the downtown ocre
- Any one MAC address is only allowed one hour online at a time.
I realize the article is proposing more then what we have up here, but I was pretty impressed with what my city has done.
Basically, I can go out for lunch, and avoid some bad legal problems if I'm to use my work network for home coding, or what have you. An hour's just perfect for me: but if I want more, it's a Telus (http://www.telus.com/) hotspot, so naturally I can buy more minutes.
I'd love to see this spread city wide, but I'm not really sure the point: taxes would probably have to go up, and either noone will use it when they can use their home networks (over only using an hour a day), etc.
That said, it's a nice on-ramp, it's good for visitors, and I personally like it.
- - - -
KickingDragon
as long as they accept that other are in that space as well. If they pull a fast one and try to claim eminent(sp) domain, well, that is BS.
11b is nice and slow and CHEAP. There is new technology being developed that is much faster, able to penetrate buildings, etc. etc. But with Chicago doing a low-end cheap system, they set the bar for what they are willing to accept from somebody else. Hopefully, they will also resist the urge to offer monopolies. This can be a win-win all the way around.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No real libertarian would support a govt based wireless muni network. The reason telcom companies are not providing metro WiFi access is they are a lot smarter than local politicians. They are waiting for WiMax deployment, which is the right solution for the problem. When your local govt wastes your money on a WiFi network, you'll be stuck with it while other comunities are get much better perfomance with WiMax for a lot lower cost. No telcom company will want to compete with your "free" but lousy network.
Vote for Pedro
I know I'm going to get some flames for this because quite a lot of Slashdotters seem to believe that everything should be free, but I'm not absolutely comfortable with free city-sponsored wireless.
Telecom companies rank just below HMOs on the vileness scale, but having Chicago put up wireless APs everywhere is not going to result in a socialist Internet dream where the city pays for your pr0n downloads. What it does result in is some lucky corporation's dream, where everyone in Chicago pays the city (some more indirectly than others) to pay a single contracted telecom to give them wireless Internet.
Not everyone is going to use this service. That's OK, not everyone uses the school system, but we all pay for it...but in this case, I'm not even sure that a clear majority in Chicago use the Internet. And even if they do, some use it much less than others. Most Slashdotters probably would have a hard time going back from their broadband accounts to $10/mo dialup, but the average person who checks their AOL email once a day is probably under no pressure to switch anytime soon.
Furthermore, due to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, which I firmly believe in, I expect the city would end up having to do (or contract out) major security work to handle people with too much time on their hands. The issue of censorship comes up as well -- the city now acts as the ISP for a host of activities that may include breaking Illinois state law. This can probably be ironed out, but why deal with it at all?
As much as I love getting stuff free, I have to say that this screams "boondoggle". The potential waste and corruption (this is the Chicago city government we're talking about) of a deal like this, as well as the small number of potential beneficiaries, makes me very dubious.
What do I like better? Portland's Personal Telco Project. It's not sponsored by (read: under control of) the city government. It's done by private contributors who choose their own ISP, allowing a wider range of solutions to be chosen, are responsible for the cells of their own network, and -- apparently -- make group decisions by consensus as opposed to mandate (as the city would be the primary controller of a municipal network, I'm guessing most decisions would be by mandate of some controlling committee). There is also less potential for fuckwad-related damage, since the people who put these up generally are nerds or assisted by nerds who know what they're doing. In short, it's much more decentralized and, IMHO, essentially more free.
Of course, it's not as easy to get city-wide municipal Internet the Personal Telco way as it is to simply tell all your fellow citizens to pay for a luxury that you want.
There's no sig like this sig anywhere near this sig, so this must be the sig.
What makes you think you will have lower bills?
State ventures are usually much less efficient than private ones, so if anything, you would see either higher bills, or higher taxes. Either way, you'd end up paying more.
If you want state-run stores and industry, try moving to the last surviving communist countries - North Korea or Cuba for example. Good luck.
of the Chicagoland area, I've learned a few things about the way things are done in Chicago:
Granted, I like the idea of a city-wide WiFi network. But I know that if Chicago adopted WiFi, Daley and Co. would find some way to poison the well and ruin everything for everybody.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
After Ring the Fing A, it looks like their "pondering" is in the direction of letting some as yet unknown company rent space on their light and electric poles.
Said company would charge people say 20$ a month for a password to connect to the service (or something like that) and said company would pay the city "rent" for the pole space.
This is in no way the free municipal wifi that people are daydreaming of. This is merely a city trying to find a way to cash in on the wifi craze by renting their property.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
and that would be true if we weren't talking about CHICAGO. You know who the Mayor of Chicago is right? Well let me clue you in his name is Richard M. Daley, and he GETS HIS WAY.
*points to where Meigs Field use to be*
"It could run into efforts underway now in the state capital by Big Telecom to shut out muni Internet in Illinois."
Apparently, you are not familiar with Mayor Daley. You see, in the US, the state legislates the city, but in Chicago, the city legislates the state.
This "wonderful idea" for 802.11 hot spots, which are essentially coverage circles that are 30 meters in diameter will be obsolete in 3 years.
Anybody trying to use 802.11 (aka WiFi) to cover an entire city must be either clueless in technology or a politician.
The proper solution for this is just now emerging, in the form of 802.16a (aka WiMax) which gives coverage circles larger than 5Km, which can be used to provide city wide coverage, without too much pain. (Google it, there's plenty of stuff out there.)
WiFi was designed to get rid of that last 30 meters of Ethernet cable. and for that it serves well. People have been trying to use it in so many applications that it was never designed for.
www.effectiveelectrons.com "chips that work" Analog, RF, Mixed Signal
Unfortunately, the parent's point about "wireless networks being best left to commercial entities" is really only applicable where competition exists! There is no (real) competition for the regional "baby bell" telcos, because they own the infrastructure, and are regulated (badly) by the various state corporation commissions. The local municipalities are at the mercy of whatever timeframe and limits the telcos place on upgrading that infrastructure. OTOH, most cable companies are regulated at the municipal or county level, where the local governments can use the "big stick" of not renewing the cable company contracts for service. The difference in improved broadband access (between the telco & the cable provider) is remarkable.
Fairfax County, VA has Verizon for their telco, and Cox Cable for their cable service. The county specified the percentage of broadband access provided, as well as the timeframe that it could happen in, under threat of replacing Cox with another provider. So far, Cox has been rolling out broadband cable access right on schedule. OTOH, Verizon has been very slow to upgrade their infrastructure (POTS) for DSL access. Verizon doesn't answer to the county, but to the state, so there is no possibility of overturning Verizon's monopoly "applecart" at the county or municipality level.
Competition is a fair means to bring broadband access to a county or a region, and anything that a municipality can do to help foster that competition is fair game (in my book). The telcos' rush to squash municipal competition in WiFi access by doing an end-run with state legislatures is an unmitigated grab for continued monopolistic power that does not bode well for the consumer.
The underlying question that the citizens need to be asking their state legislatures is "Does the state grant monopoly status to corporations for the benefit of its citizens, or for the benefit of its corporations?" Increasingly (at least in these United States of America), the answer is in favor of the corporate monopolists. And considering which political party is in control of most state legislatures these days, it is a foregone conclusion that the corporate monopolists will win. In the USA, at least, our neocon politicians do have an ethos (of sorts): they stay "bought" by their corporate masters.
NO CARRIER
NO CARRIER