Bill Calls For Wi-Fi Base Stations In All Federal Buildings

GovTechGuy submits this from Hillicon Valley: "Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) introduced legislation on Friday that would require all public federal buildings to install WiFi base stations in order to free up cell phone networks. The Federal Wi-Net Act would mandate the installation of small WiFi base stations in all publicly accessible federal buildings in order to increase wireless coverage and free up mobile networks. The bill would require all new buildings under construction to comply and all older buildings to be retrofitted by 2014. It also orders $15 million from the Federal Buildings Fund be allocated to fund the installations."

Comments

We don't have the cash for this let the cell phone

[Joe The Dragon]

We don't have the cash for this let the cell phone companies pay for it.

Bah

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL.....Poor mobile phone providers....Waste tax payers money building out a completely useless wireless network so they do t need to upgrade their own networks.

If your public servants need a wireless network to do their job, install a wireless network, dont mandate it in legislation!

Re:Bah

[gnapster]

Come, now. I was aiming for funny, not insightful. But since you ask..

Senators are US citizens, just like most people living in the USA. Introducing legislation is one of the special powers that they have as members of the legislative branch of the government, and as such it is more effective for them than for the rest of us. But do you really believe that legislation is the only tool US citizens (legislators or not) have for getting things done? You must feel pretty powerless. :c(

They could talk to the people in charge of technical infrastructure in federal buildings. Communicate with people in the FCC and Presidential cabinet. I don't know who would be in charge of the oversight and implementation of the installations that they are trying to introduce with this bill, but it seems to me that Congress is probably not the closest Womb of Policy for this particular issue. I have no doubt that if I felt strongly about increasing wireless coverage, I could find out who the important people are, and get in touch. As senators, Snowe and Warner have more ready knowledge of these hierarchies, and the station and name recognition to have their voices heard.

That said, the article indicates (in the fourth paragraph) that they are not only interested in Wi-Fi coverage in Federal buildings, but "preventing dropped calls that occur indoors and in rural areas due to poor cell phone coverage, while also hopefully boosting wireless network capacity". This sounds much more comprehensive than the summary, which indicates that they are simply focusing on federal buildings. That is a scenario where legislation may be warranted.

My comment, however, was simply playing off the parent, who was basically asking, "Do we really need a law on the books so that members of Congress don't get dropped calls in the Capitol Building?" If that is all this bill is about, then it seems like these senators would be better-served by walking down the hall and knocking on the door of their helpdesk. Maybe they've already tried that, and now are going over the head of an ornery sysadmin.

Who was behind this? ATT?

[olsmeister]

So nice of our gubernment to take some of the load off of those congested cellular networks. Phew.

Why?

[Jrono]

The government doesn't need to be wasting money on stuff like this right now... Not only do the wifi base stations cost money, there are also the reoccurring Internet connection costs and general maintenance costs. Or is this supposed to be some sort of telecom bailout? Besides who wants to use an Internet connection directly controlled by the feds?

Re:Why?

[squiggleslash]

Absolutely. This isn't even stimulus-worthy, Wifi base stations require virtually no American labor.

It also promotes the lie that the cellular networks are congested due to lack of resources. In reality, AT&T and Verizon, to name but two, are sitting on unused AWS spectrum in virtually the entire country, that they've made a policy decision to buy but as yet not deploy anything to. There are also several companies sitting on spectrum in the 2GHz to 4GHz bands, supposedly to roll-out TDD variants of WiMAX and UMTS-TDD, but who've not had the funds to actually set the things up.

There is, believe it or not, a spectrum *glut* by any sane measurement of spectrum usage at the moment, and as spectrum efficiency improves year by year, with technologies from HSPA+ to LTE improving available bandwidth per MHz exponentially, the old arguments for treating wireless services as inherently more expensive than wired are fast falling away.

Free wifi here!

[soupforare]

We're not sniffing every connection and logging every packet, honest!

They should go wider...

[Haedrian]

Over here where I come from, not only do government buildings have free wifi - but so do public areas such as parks or gardens.

You can just bring a laptop and work there (for as long as your battery lasts at least) or whatever. That way people who don't want/have data plans can still get wireless internet.

Re:They should go wider...

[TheRaven64]

Yeah, because internet access is a RIGHT

In the EU, it is now regarded as such, along with things like clean water, heating, and access to education, because it is increasingly difficult to participating in society without Internet access.

and the government should be spending our taxpayers money to make sure everyone should be able to get online

One of the things that governments are responsible for is ensuring that everyone has (at least approximately) equal opportunities.

Re:We don't have the cash for this let the cell ph

[camperdave]

I couldn't agree more. This is one of those good ideas we just can't afford, especially with the country's present financial condition.

Oh for the love of Pete! You spend over half a trillion dollars a year on your military, as much as the rest of the other militaries on the planet combined. Cut your military spending by a few percent and you could pay for proper schools, the space program, and still have money left over to put wifi in your government offices.