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Tempe City-Wide Wireless Snags
Triumph The Insult C writes "About a month ago, the dot carried a story about the city of Tempe, AZ, laying claim to be the first major metropolitan area to provide city-wide broadband internet access. Well, things haven't gone exactly as planned, as one of the companies involved, MobilePro Corp, is now being investigated by the state for not holding the appropriate permits. As a resident of downtown Tempe, I hope the rollout isn't successful, as I would much prefer to see a more community-based effort, such as in Seattle, Austin, and New York City."
About a month ago, the dot carried a story
The "dot"?
http://www.tempe.gov/business/wifi/
The town near my aunt's cottage went totally wireless when some drunk driver knocked over the pole that connected them to everything else...
I didn't rtfa though, so maybe this isn't the same thing...
the AP's have to physically be located somewhere, and use electricity somebody is paying for. They'll need permits for all of this.
Excellent, now I can take down the protective siding around my house, what with these intrusive waves going away.
"A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes." -Mahatma Gandhi
I mean, OK if a community votes on a measure and the town sets up community funded wireless. But why would the original submission author hope for a private business to fail in the expectation that a town government would step up and fill their shoes? I mean, not only does it seem an unlikely outcome, but it's also mean spirited. Hey, if a business sets up something you want at a reasonable price - what's wrong with that? Would you prefer the government run this? \*cough!\* I call myself a liberal, but frankly, I'd rather see private industry handle this sort of thing. JMO. --M
From the tempe.gov site posted below:
"In return for MobilePro's agreement to build and operate a Municipal network for the City's use, Tempe agrees to grant limited use of the City street light infrastructure and existing fiber backhaul locations for Mobile Pro to deploy its network."
From TFA:
"Dave Heck, deputy manager of information technology for Tempe, said MobilePro should be treated like other communications firms that do not need a license to build wireless systems because they plan to use a subcontractor to install the network.
But after reviewing city records, the chief of licensing officer for the registrar's office asked for an investigator to be assigned, saying companies that build onto existing infrastructure must register with the state.
To construct the wireless network, MobilePro plans to add infrastructure - such as antennas - to city-owned stoplights and street lamps."
The actual issue seems to be that the company (MobilePro Corp.) isn't registered with the Arizona Registrar of Contractors. The city officals, however, say the company doesn't need a general contractors license, so they are planning to continue with the construction.
This seems to be Local vs. State issue and while the State doesn't seem to be able to directly cancel the project, they can boot the company out of the state, so they'd need a new company to add to the infrastructure as they are planning to build the Wi-Fi.
"Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write it should be hard to understand."
A regulated monopoly run as a for profit company? Why would you dream about that?
My other car is a Popemobile
I currently live in Tempe, Arizona attending the University of Advancing Technology. This seems like a poorly planned project. Already in downtown Tempe stores have free WAP's opened up, ASU has free Wireless all over campus, note its huge 57,000 students, and even at my college, www.uat.edu, The University of Advancing Technology, we offer free wireless access to the community. No one is going to pitch in the money to pay for this service, most consumers have access to the internet via cox cable internet for $40 a month and businesses. There is no incentive to switch over. Our college, sponsered a wardriving project in which we found a lot of information about Tempe and the valley. The project was to map out the whole Phoenix valley WAPS. "The wardriving project is already 1/3 complete, after starting this fall. That was done with a crew of Al Kelly's war rivers who volunteered to set up the laptops (provided by UAT), configure the GPS and wardriving kits. "For the upcoming semester, students will go in wardriving crews to canvas the Phoenix valley and search out wireless networks. The data will be collected and then analyzed against demographic information such as age, income and commercial characteristics of the scanned areas. Wardriving crews have already gone on reconnaissance trips, and in a nearby seven-mile square mile area, found more than 1,000 access points." From my understanding I am sure more people will post from my school but they have found like over 200,000 non secured access points. I bet a lot of people are asking why do we need to pay $40 for city wide wireless since its already being offered free (legally that is)? Thats a good question.
I personally don't understand what the author is talking about. Yes, there is some development by the community (both public and private) of the wireless network in the city, but it is very limited. Currently, we have some cafes, various public buildings, and a scattering of parks that have free access.
Overall though, I wouldn't put the percentage at higher then _maybe_ 2% of the city as being truly wireless. And I'm not talking about putting wireless way out in the fringe neighborhoods and suburbs, I'm talking about right smack in the middle of down town, and in various big commercial centers, like the malls.
But that being said, it is nice to know that there is an effort to do this, even if the effects are negligible at best right now. After all, progress always starts off slow, and it may end up increasing dramatically in the next months/years.
You hope that something that could be useful to many people will fail, just because you like something else? You want to see money wasted, just to feel superior?
Why does this rollout succeeding, stop you from contributing to community efforts? Maybe you should make an effort to do better yourself, with your community ideas, rather than simply hoping that others fail. What an attitude!
... and then they built the supercollider.
Last time I checked, my phone and electricity didn't come out of the town's taxes. Sure, they're government price-controlled utilities (because they're monopolies), but they're still run by private companies. Here in upstate NY, I make my checks out to Niagara Mohawk and Verizon.
The space unintentionally left unblank.
Sure, then take a look at Burt Rutan again and wait until he makes something that that goes beyond what NASA did with it's Mercury flights ~45 years ago. Rutan had a interesting design and did a lot but the fact remains that Spaceship One can't even compare to the Gemini flights much less the the Space Shuttle.
I would rethink worshipping at the temple of capitialism. Studies have shown that nationalized health services can be run with a lower overhead and administrative costs than private healthcare services. There are other examples of pure capitialism being detrimental, e.g. monopolies.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
I couldn't agree with you more. All rutan did was pay some people to build a sub-orbital space vehicle. NASA funds SCIENTIFIC research in a huge number of fields that greatly advance our understanding of the universe. The whole "NASA sucks" virgin-galactic worship thing really pisses me off. You're talking about one of the largest, most productive research organizations in the history of humankind, and comparing it to a guy who solved a minor engineering problem by drawing from existing technologies. I'm not saying NASA couldn't use some serious reorganization and better administration, but comparing the work of its many talented scientists to a company that built a glorified airplane is foolish, disrepectful, and incredibly short-sighted.
Burt Rutan has actually put a human being in space
But honestly, who cares? What do you think that has to do with NASA's mission? Manned space flight is a side show that has been maintained to entertain the masses who weren't entertained anyhow. It has almost nothing to doing space science, which is NASA's strength. I enjoy Star Trek and find it diverting occasionaly in a dramatic sense, but it is FANTASY. It is about as realistic as Lord of the Rings.
When Burt Rutan does a successful robotic mission to Mars, give me a call. Or when he blasts a probe into a comet I'll take note of it. Maybe a fly by of Saturn's moons. Then there is the passing of Voyager (NASA's not Roddenberry's) into a new region of interstellar space. The list goes on for quite a while with nothing more to register on Rutan's side of the ledger. It is a shame you choose to expose him to such a comparison when I'm certain he would not be so foolish himself. I mean no disrespect for Mr Rutan as what he accomplished is admirable. But to compare NASA unfavorably to his effort requires a remarkable level of cluelessness.