I went down to Herring Cove beach on Saturday and sat there staring dumbly for a good half hour. The parent is absolutely right - even without binoculars the spectacle of so many whales in one small area is a sight to see.
This seems like as good a place as any to ask... Has anyone tried Meraki's devices?
It seems like an ideal way for a community to do muni wi-fi on a limited ad hoc basis. Have the library and town hall buy reasonable amounts of bandwidth, install a bunch of nodes in the area and then encourage neighbors and local businesses to participate at least by buying nodes and installing them. Consumers can help by buying a node for home and plugging it in - they get free or low cost internet and expand the network. And since monthly cost to power a node with no additional bandwidth is so low users are unlikely to power them off when not in use.
As more nodes are installed additional bandwidth is necessary and their-in lies the only major problem I can see. The only obvious way around the bandwidth problem is to do something "evil" like add a clause into the contract for the cable company upon renewal that requires them to allow end users to participate in the town wi-fi network. What's that Comcast? You don't agree to that clause? Fine, we will find another company that will.
Of course this only really works for dense areas - downtown, main street, densely populated areas and the like will work fine. Neighborhoods of smaller homes on small pieces of property will be fine. Three thousand square foot homes on 1.5 acres will be SOL.
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I went down to Herring Cove beach on Saturday and sat there staring dumbly for a good half hour. The parent is absolutely right - even without binoculars the spectacle of so many whales in one small area is a sight to see.
This seems like as good a place as any to ask... Has anyone tried Meraki's devices? It seems like an ideal way for a community to do muni wi-fi on a limited ad hoc basis. Have the library and town hall buy reasonable amounts of bandwidth, install a bunch of nodes in the area and then encourage neighbors and local businesses to participate at least by buying nodes and installing them. Consumers can help by buying a node for home and plugging it in - they get free or low cost internet and expand the network. And since monthly cost to power a node with no additional bandwidth is so low users are unlikely to power them off when not in use. As more nodes are installed additional bandwidth is necessary and their-in lies the only major problem I can see. The only obvious way around the bandwidth problem is to do something "evil" like add a clause into the contract for the cable company upon renewal that requires them to allow end users to participate in the town wi-fi network. What's that Comcast? You don't agree to that clause? Fine, we will find another company that will. Of course this only really works for dense areas - downtown, main street, densely populated areas and the like will work fine. Neighborhoods of smaller homes on small pieces of property will be fine. Three thousand square foot homes on 1.5 acres will be SOL.