After all, if the media is report 2 months minimum then it falls into November when they have to shutdown anyhow to provide Geneva enough energy to heat the city til spring. I suppose they don't want to publicly admit that since they like the attention and press coverage. Sadly, we won't see much data from them for a while then = (
I worked closely on the system in Philadelphia from a design and deployment perspective for quite some time as well as many other MESH/WiFi systems throughout the country. While I'm not going to get into the technical limitations since they can be debated endlessly, I think the majority of Earthlink's issues stemmed from their business model. There simply are no guaranteed dollars in the model they designed these systems on. You cannot expect users with the vast array of options they have to choose a system such as the one in Philly or any others throughout the country. They had high hopes for their subscriber counts, thinking that they can penetrate low-income areas by subsidizing the costs of PC's and laptops (bridging the digital divide). Ultimately, I believe technical users had little interest because they don't want to pay the high monthly costs and be tethered to a city when their alternatives can be fairly easier afforded with far fewer limitations. Low income users pay a much smaller monthly fee but I'd be very interested to see just how many have signed on, I can't imagine many have. Surely, the local gangs would see far greater benefit in it, I could think of dozens of uses they could immediately get out of such a system.
Instead, such a system should have been designed with public safety and utility in mind. Yes, there are even issues with that and it could lead to a whole other discussion, but it's a step in the right direction. But had Earthlink used public safety as their base (traffic incident cameras, crime watch, etc.) they could guarantee a certain amount of dollars and open a lower percentage of the bandwidth for public usage. I believe it's exactly where they're headed now that the business model has been exposed as a poor one.
For the most part you're right, current 802.11x tech cannot truly handle the needs. But 802.11n would have been a great step to providing the requirements to meet such a system.
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After all, if the media is report 2 months minimum then it falls into November when they have to shutdown anyhow to provide Geneva enough energy to heat the city til spring. I suppose they don't want to publicly admit that since they like the attention and press coverage. Sadly, we won't see much data from them for a while then = (
I worked closely on the system in Philadelphia from a design and deployment perspective for quite some time as well as many other MESH/WiFi systems throughout the country. While I'm not going to get into the technical limitations since they can be debated endlessly, I think the majority of Earthlink's issues stemmed from their business model. There simply are no guaranteed dollars in the model they designed these systems on. You cannot expect users with the vast array of options they have to choose a system such as the one in Philly or any others throughout the country. They had high hopes for their subscriber counts, thinking that they can penetrate low-income areas by subsidizing the costs of PC's and laptops (bridging the digital divide). Ultimately, I believe technical users had little interest because they don't want to pay the high monthly costs and be tethered to a city when their alternatives can be fairly easier afforded with far fewer limitations. Low income users pay a much smaller monthly fee but I'd be very interested to see just how many have signed on, I can't imagine many have. Surely, the local gangs would see far greater benefit in it, I could think of dozens of uses they could immediately get out of such a system. Instead, such a system should have been designed with public safety and utility in mind. Yes, there are even issues with that and it could lead to a whole other discussion, but it's a step in the right direction. But had Earthlink used public safety as their base (traffic incident cameras, crime watch, etc.) they could guarantee a certain amount of dollars and open a lower percentage of the bandwidth for public usage. I believe it's exactly where they're headed now that the business model has been exposed as a poor one.
For the most part you're right, current 802.11x tech cannot truly handle the needs. But 802.11n would have been a great step to providing the requirements to meet such a system.