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Municipal Wi-Fi Networks In Trouble

Posted by kdawson on from the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time dept.

imamac writes "According to an AP story, municipal Wi-Fi is going nowhere fast. A think tank research director quipped, 'They are the monorails of this decade: the wrong technology, totally overpromised and completely undelivered.' Subscriptions to the services are much lower than expected and lawmakers are concerned that millions of dollars will have gone to waste that could have been better spent on roads or crime-fighting. Satisfaction with the quality of service has also been low, which give some insight into the low adoption rate. Is municipal Wi-Fi just a bad idea, has it been poorly implemented, or is the technology just not there to support such an endeavor?"

3 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. A think tank research director quipped by Ice+Station+Zebra · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "I'll say anything if you give me money."

  2. At the risk of being repetative by zappepcs · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let me say this, Metropolitan networks, whether Wi-Fi or otherwise need one thing to make them both competitive and financially viable; the metropolitan network needs to be owned by that cooperative body within the municipality's control. That means every last 'last mile' connection.

    When the city/county (whatever) owns all the last mile physical plant/infrastructure and ISP's simply rent connectivity to end users the municipality will be functional and profitable. Yes, that is how we would see big bandwidth to every home, and each home would have the choice of ISP services. It is possible to do this and would instantly flatten the cost of entry as well as the rules of engagement.

    Then, if you ad Wi-Fi support to parts of the city that is subscribed to by users who already pay... well, it's not such a stretch to support financially.

    Does anyone see any downsides to this?

    --
    Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
  3. The major issue by Shaman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The major issue has been that they have given the contracts to implementors that are paid for the number of radios that they install and by gosh they will install more radios than anyone every imagined. But, see, the 2.4Ghz bands were already polluted BEFORE they started and installing 2.4G radios on every block for several square miles when each mesh radio has a practical range (line of sight) of around 20 miles is really not helping things. And just as bad, the backhaul of the mesh radios is almost always 5.2Ghz or 5.8Ghz, which have only a few channels each to choose from (5.8Ghz has more, but still...)

    Don't believe this could happen? Ask anyone that has tried to use the Toronto mesh network downtown. It's flat ugly.

    --
    ...Steve