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Municipal WiFi Moves Ahead In Houston
Highlander404 sends word of one city that is bucking the trend of failing city Wi-Fi projects: Houston is investing most of the $5 million Earthlink paid to get out of its muni Wi-Fi contract to build out 10 free wireless network "bubbles" in low-income parts of the city. Access points will be in city-owned facilities to keep costs down. Houston's mayor said that over the long term the bubbles could be connected and the areas between them added to the network. The activation of the first of these zones was announced Monday. Upload and download speeds are said to be 3 Mbps.
Sorry, here's the first entry in the DailyWTF series. Be sure to read through to the part where the business plan evolves to strapping a laptop, solar cell and satellite dish to a donkey and sending it through rural India!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Of course, everything has to be paid for. In this case, Earthlink is paying for it out of their profits. Which means their customers are paying for it. Which means their employers are paying for it... and so on. But it is free to the users, for now. It'll be interesting how it develops from here though.
"Teach a man to build a fire, and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life."
...and it shouldn't have to be. I think it's a great idea to build out some of that infrastructure, but anyone who thinks it's going to bring full bandwidth to the masses has another think coming. But I have an idea to get businesses to provide this sort of service for "free". Feel free to implement, sell, and tell me your success stories. First, you'd need an easy-to-administrate wireless access point which allows businesses to customize the "Welcome" page, but has few other configurable options. Then you'd need to convince businesses that it's worthwhile for them to get DSL/Cable and run one of your wireless access points in their front window. The customizable "Welcome" page could just be a "digital billboard", saying, "This Internet session courtesy of Blah Blah, incorporated. Come in for a free home loan analysis." Or $0.50 off a mocha. Or something. Then let the user roam free on the net, maybe asking for their contact info first for later mailers if they want to get coupons. This could be extended to almost any fixed structure. Make the system weather-proof, and you could sell the idea to the businesses that advertise on billboards, so that anyone near such a billboard would get free Internet access after being notified of the advertiser's presence, maybe offered something special for calling the number on the billboard. Even newspaper kiosks could offer web access, if they're nailed down and wired appropriately. That way, people who are pulling out their iPhones to check movie listings or look up the weather could get that information from LocalPaper.com's site before moving on to the full-blown Internet. Just an idea, but I think it'd be a good way to profitably get Internet access points freely available, at least to high-traffic business districts. Then let the city build out to other areas; maybe start in less affluent areas where even slow access to the Internet for free would be a great benefit for those who can't afford $25.00/month for DSL.
The CB App. What's your 20?
You don't need fiber for 15 access points. The total equipment cost on this would be a small fraction of that money, and much of the hardware is being donated by Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Verizon Wireless and Tropos Networks. They must be holding back the money to pay for operating costs, like network management and internet access.
What is a "load capable access point", btw? One 11n Wi-Fi radio has about the same load capacity as any other. It's a zero sum game with the available bandwidth. If you want more capacity, deploy more radios. If this were mesh, then maybe the APs would matter more.
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others. -Groucho Marx
As a fellow Houstonian who lived in the Gulfton area before it backslid into such a high crime area,
I think you are assuming way too much. There are plenty of devices that can be had free or cheap
to get on the net, and that are certainly in the reach of low-income family. I've seen plenty
of PSPs ($169) and Nintendo DS ($129) floating around low income neighborhoods just to start, so people are willing
to drop even "small" (by your standard or mine) amounts of disposable income on entertainment. And both
those devices have 802.11b wireless access. Even so a linux PC from Fry's ($199) or Walmart isn't much more if
someone is forced to buy new. You can bet Fry's or someone savvy will start bundling a high-gain antenna
and wireless card / usb stick for this market.
In terms of free or cheap, I personally supervised the disposal of hundreds of computers after a major downsizing
and was able to redirect some of them to a personal favorite charity. If there had been demand for the balance
of the devices I think I could have gotten them all, frankly. But even without a downsizing the City of Houston's Harwin recycling
center accepts old computers for recycling, nothing stopping COH from sending them though a volunteer organization
to see what's reusable and donating devices. They give away toys and bikes every year at Christmas at the George R. Brown,
heck I was there myself last year. But hey just ask your city council members if you don't believe me.
So before you start to poo poo the idea of folks getting access, let me assure you that again I personal experience getting people to volunteer
time and equipment for low-income folks who needed laptops or desktops for college.
Having said that, unless it is very dense I think this infrastructure is going to be oversubscribed very, very quickly.
Good luck to COH keeping the mesh up once its established! And of course I cringe at the first 911 call because someone's
kid can't get on the net and needs to do their homework. You know its going to happen. LOL.
(Read fark.com for plenty of examples of that behavior if you don't believe me there either.)