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Mountain View To Partially Replace Google Wi-Fi
itwbennett writes "Google launched the citywide Wi-Fi network with much fanfare in 2006 as a way for Mountain View residents and businesses to connect to the Internet at no cost. It covers most of the Silicon Valley city and worked well until last year, as Slashdot readers may recall, when connectivity got rapidly worse. As a result, Mountain View is installing new Wi-Fi hotspots in parts of the city to supplement the poorly performing network operated by Google. Both the city and Google have blamed the problems on the design of the network. Google, which is involved in several projects to provide Internet access in various parts of the world, said in a statement that it is 'actively in discussions with the Mountain View city staff to review several options for the future of the network.'"
Google, which is involved in several projects to provide Internet access in various parts of the world,
There's a pattern here. They launch dozens of new products and then kill them a short time later. The roll out WiFi to their home town and then neglect it.
Advertising brings in 98% of their revenue. Everything else is just playthings for a company with too much money and no idea what to (usefully) do with it. Maybe instead of worrying about balloons in Africa you should work on the things in your own back yard..
Google is competing with local businesses by providing a multitude of services to its staff. Living in the shadow of the Googleplex is causing job losses and hurting rather than boosting the local economy.
Silicon Valley towns continue to suffer from terrible public schools and broken communities. East Palo Alto is a violent urban ghetto in every sense of the definition. And its smack-dab in the heart of Silicon Valley, right next to Facebook and Google.
Silicon Valley has all these "visionaries" saying they are "changing the world" yet they can't / won't change their own neighborhoods. The local schools should be showcases instead they are basket cases; the local communities should be healthy and thriving, but instead they are suffering from unemployment and all the other problems that communities across the country have to deal with on a daily basis.
What's the point in having these high tech giants in our midst when there is little or no advantage to the communities that surround them? They want special treatment; they want to pay little or no taxes; they would rather be a burden on their neighbors than ease the burden of others.
The summary concocts a wonderful fantasy. I live in mountain view. It doesn't work near my home, at the Caltrain station with nobody there, or on Castro. You connect and you're lucky to get an IP. If that actually works, you'll wait for a few minutes to get to your first page.
Large-scale wi-fi? I guess they should call that "that big ugly thing that just does not work". WiFi is difficult to make work properly in a big house, and they tried to make it work in a city-wide scale. I just never understoond the point of making public wi fi hotspots available for free. In 2006? Maybe. In 2013? Who uses that? 3G and 4G services have the potential to provide a much better service than a half-assed wi-fi.
And i'm just guessing here, but I'm pretty sure this is a "mesh" of AP. Back in the early 00s, WiFI meshes, or WDS, were supposed to solve all connectivity problems. People would just have a big mesh of APs that would cover from one house to another and some internet pipes here and there. Guess what? Meshes just don't work. They aren't reliable. If they are reliable, they're also unusably slow, and don't scale with hundreds of users.
If a city wants to give free internet acces, why bother deploying wi-fi? Wouldn't it be a good idea to just subsidize 3G/4G access and make it free for everyone? Before you all jump at me claiming that wi-fi is free: remember it's not. Your $30 AP can't work in outdoor conditions. Cases are expensive, heat makes the AP crash. You need to wire some of them at least. And heat also kills the APs in just a few years (just look at the Cisco outdoor APs which look nothing like toy APs. And cost thousands each). Deploying and maintaining a Wi-Fi network made of cheap APs in a mesh probably costs the same in the long run as using very expensive APs. And why throw away so much money into that? I know Mountain View city has money to spare but i'm sure there are other things where the money could be used, rather than providing "free wifi".
It's never really worked. The main downtown area, Castro Street, service is abysmal. If I can get an IP address, page load times are terrible. On the other hand, turn off the wireless on my phone and go with 4G and surfing is nice and snappy.
This was a PR stunt by Google, they were never serious about this. Or the old addage, "you get what you pay for". Given all you needed to access it was a google account, of course they're going to do the bare minimum. Conversely, with Vz/ATT, you're paying for service.
It looks like their system was based on Topos MetroMesh in-band mesh backhaul, so someone using 1Mbps on one access point is tying up 1Mbps on multiple APs. This was at a time when 256 Kbps could have been considered "high speed". Not sure how many APs are connected to a fiber/copper/microwave backhaul, I guessing just a few to cut costs, but it would seem to me that as many APs as possible should have an out of band backhaul (ideally fiber to every AP)...Also APs antenna/RF might have to be tuned down to reduce coverage and a higher density of APs is likely needed with the increased usage - or multiple APs with sector antennas ( 3 x 120 degree, or 6 x 60 degree) are placed at locations instead of single AP with omnis - I'm thinking something LIKE the Ubiquiti NanoStations could be placed around a light pole to act as combination AP and 60 degree sector antenna and be more ascetically pleasing than the box with whips attached found right now, electronics to feed the NSs could fit inside most poles at the base, or in a small box near the AP/Antennas.