Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Wireless Networking The Internet Hardware

Largest Citywide Wi-Fi Deployment 194

Posted by CowboyNeal from the better-network-neighborhoods dept.
Grumpy writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that Aiirnet will begin installing, next month, the largest single Wi-Fi deployment in the nation in the city of Cerritos in Southern California. Ultimately, anyone with a laptop or wireless device will be able to surf the Web from virtually anywhere in the city's 8.6-square-mile area. Scores of wireless networking transmitters are being placed atop public buildings, traffic lights and other structures to blanket the city. The 51,000 residents of Cerritos have not had DSL broadband access to the Internet because the city is too far from the telephone company's central office and Cable Internet access has not been an option either."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Largest Citywide Wi-Fi Deployment More

Largest Citywide Wi-Fi Deployment

Comments Filter:
  • Some city in Cali does what I would LOVE to do here in St. Louis.

    There's simply not enough tech-savvy people around here to make it worth the money. :P

    • Re:Figures. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mookie-blaylock ( 522933 )
      The problem with St. Louis is population density -- it's so spread out. Around LA, you've got a fairly decent population density so it's kind of practical.

      Where in St. Louis would you even start? Around Clayton? (that's an actual question, I used to be from St. Louis and can't imagine where you'd do it... can't say that Cerritos is my first thought for out here, but that's just me.)
  • How does something like SeattleWireless [seattlewireless.net] stack up?

  • hmmm (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mr_tommy ( 619972 ) <tgraham@g m a i l . c om> on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:07PM (#7695785) Journal
    Are there going to be any restrictions on access or anything? Or is it going to be free for all for hackers / pedos?

  • Begin installing? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Dr_LHA ( 30754 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:07PM (#7695787) Homepage
    Not true. Actually it's already started, you can get wifi access in Cerritos (as well as a great deal on a new car at the Cerritos Auto Centre - thanks Super Dave) in some spots for free. When they've completed it it's going to cost $30 a month apparently to access, so this is not a free WiFi installation.

  • In related news... (Score:4, Funny)

    by rickbender1940 ( 727218 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:08PM (#7695794)
    Cerritos becomes the spam capital of the world
    • Which is an interesting idea because Cerritos has *very* strict building appearance laws that severely restrict outdoor advertising, to the point where the Toys R Us in Cerritos had to turn their R around the right way to change it from a logo to a name (legally).

  • Drive to LA! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:09PM (#7695797)
    I hear in LA, I hear open access points are as common as traffic jams

  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:09PM (#7695808) Homepage Journal
    Finally, I know how that song goes!

    On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
    Warm smell of Cerritos, rising up throught the air

    Now I know where to go on my next road trip [hotelcal.com]!

  • What about abuse? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jaiger ( 166690 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:09PM (#7695811) Homepage Journal
    With all of these municipal and large open wireless networks being discussed I begin to wonder what these organizations will do about network abuse.

    If I were a spammer I might consider moving to this town or better yet a town nearby. How's a beat-cop going to know that it's me spewing spam all day - or even a few hours - from various points all over town? I'm sure you can send a lot of spam in a couple hours or so.

    -joe

  • Cerritos is getting the bad end of the deal. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by duncf ( 628065 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:10PM (#7695814)
    According to the article...
    The city struck a deal with the company that allows Aiirnet to place transmitters throughout the city for free... Cerritos, meanwhile, agreed to buy 60 subscription accounts, each at $34.95 a month, for its field employees.

    So... Cerritos is paying Aiirnet to set up Wi-Fi transmitters all over the city and Aiirnet will keep all the profits. What's in it for Cerritos? Sure, if Aiirnet doesn't end up making money then it makes sense, but considering they will be the only broadband provider in town, they will definitely succeed and Cerritos will get nothing.
    • You forget how incredibly unattractive a town is where you can't get decent internet for business.

      I'm sure this will bump the towns popularity significantly
    • I don't think that the city is paying for the transmitters, just allowing them to be set up on public property without the company being forced to pay for the location. So, the company pays for the transmitters, but not the land or building space where they are deployed.

      At least, that's how I read it.

    • They're not paying for the set-up, they're paying for usage. And perhaps it'll draw the attention of smaller startups, if other things like office space are cheaper than nearby cities. That would benefit the city more than charging Aiirnet to set up.

    • Re:Cerritos is getting the bad end of the deal. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:26PM (#7695969)
      So... Cerritos is paying Aiirnet to set up Wi-Fi transmitters all over the city and Aiirnet will keep all the profits.

      You are confused. The Cerritos city government is paying for 60 accounts. Ariinet is paying for the network.

      What's in it for Cerritos?

      I'm certain Cerritos will be very pleased with broadband becoming available locally. The citizens of Cerritos, that is. For whom the city government of Cerritos is employed...

      Perhaps you meant "what's in it for the municipal government of Cerritos?" Several things;

      1.) 60 inexpensive, mobile broadband accounts
      2.) A healthy number of pleased voters
      3.) Zero capital outlay to provide the above

      You're desire to discover some iniquity on the part of Aiirnet is misplaced. Please resume whining about Ashcroft or some other equally meaningless activity.

      Thanks.

    • Re:Cerritos is getting the bad end of the deal. (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:44PM (#7696117)
      You don't understand...the residents couldn't get ANY broadband internet access at all, save maybe satellite, because the cable and DSL providers royally screwed them.

      Even if just to piss off the companies that did this to them, this was a good move. Also, the city has a TON of extra cash from the Cerritos Auto Square. (it's a place smack dab 10 minutes from nowhere) The Auto Square has like 20-25 different car dealerships, and they pay rent and taxes to the city.

      While the residents aren't necessarily the most affluent, the city's got enough to do this even if it was at a loss, just to make their constituents happy.

      It's like in SimCity...is was a big thing left on their "citizens unhappy" list and it didn't cost all that much to knock out.

  • Hooray! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Cosmik ( 730707 )
    Always gives me a warm fuzzy feeling when someone has the opportunity to be exposed to online pr0n and Slashdot.

    Just make sure Goatse man isn't driving the welcome wagon.
  • Kinda unfortunate that I didn't have a laptop before I graduated from USC...just a few months ago. They've installed an excellent WiFi network all over campus, and all my laptop-toting friends told me it was really hassle-free.

    Just curious...how many other campuses have state-of-the-art networks? Stand up and be counted!

  • If we make our cities super unattractive for DSL/Cable companies to come in ... we can get WiFi in the city! Sweet! I think throwing garbage everywhere would help spur this new initiative... I think I'll go run for mayor under this platform.

    Phase 1: Throw garbage everywhere
    Phase 2: ???
    Phase 3: WiFi and/or Profits!
  • it's awesome... I just resently got me a wi-fi toy and tested it while traveling in Washington, DC.
    It is really fun (and convinient) when you can pull out yahoo directions standing in the middle of the street...
    But it's really anoying in the airport where the only connection awailable is from a pay-for-subscribtion privider (ripper-offer?...)
    the more citywide initiative, the better....
    and where is Ceritos anyway? is it Orange Co.?

  • Massive Spamming? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by phoxix ( 161744 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:13PM (#7695843)
    Is anyone else wondering why people complain loudly about spam ...

    but they pretty much feed the problem via these wifi hotspots ?

    I think it would be pretty cool if wifi routers came with port 25 disabled by default ...

    Sunny Dubey
    • I made a similar point.

      Blocking port 25 would help but wouldn't stop spammers from (anonymously?) using misconfigured or otherwise broken services on other ports. For example, using a cross-site scripting problem or busted formail.pl to spew on.

      A while ago I was considering setting up a hotspot near my house but decided not to because of the potential for abuse. Sure, in my case I'd see some cars outside my house (or office) and could track them but why take on that hassle? I'll keep my bandwidth to my
    • Who says it has to be free? You can just do a "login" where you use your MAC. Sure someone could change their MAC to match yours I guess but then you would notice the lack of net access [cuz I can't imagine it working out too well..]

      Tom
      • I highly doubt the entire area will all be on the same broadcast domain. and that's all that really matters as far as MAC addresses are concerned because your MAC is only important on your broadcast domain (from your network card to the gateway router).

        so all I'd have to do is sniff traffic for MAC's and then go to another location where I'm on a different router and use it there.
  • Wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run to run their own fiber to each and every home, and some to the central office at the phone company. Then put up wireless base stations in public places like parks. Then when they broadband hunger public wants more speed they would not have to redo their entire infastructure.


    Check out my new ebay listing http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =2772750748 [ebay.com]
    • No. Cerritos is a pretty urban town in the middle of other urban towns. It'd cost a bundle to tear up sidewalks and streets to add enough fiber to connect every house in the city.

  • Warflying numbers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Archangel Michael ( 180766 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:16PM (#7695872) Journal
    I am going to guess that the warflying numbers are not including these new ones. Perhaps a regular survey by Warflying is needed.

    I am thinking quarterly would be often enough to be useful.

  • Quesions of (Score:4, Interesting)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:17PM (#7695888)
    City funds (your taxes) subsidising porn? Will the city be able to fend off a sizeable, vocal group that does not want their tax dollars used in delivering questionable material to other citizens?
    Or will they roll over and block that "questionable" material? (Scale this up the the entire Internet and UN control)

    What controls will be placed on log files? If the city 'owns' the logs on city-owned servers/routers, will the police or DA be required to get a warrant before searching the logs for whatever it is they are looking for?

    What restrictions are placed on usage? Personal servers, etc.

    City-wide, free, Net access is great, but there are a LOT of questions to be answered first.

    • Re:Quesions of (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:40PM (#7696080)
      City funds (your taxes) subsidising porn?

      More confusion.

      The Ariinet network is being built by Ariinet, not the city. The accounts will be paid for by the subscribers, not the city. Therefore, no city funds will serve to subsidize porn.

      It happens that the city will also obtain 60 accounts. Naturally, use of those accounts will be subject to the same rules as any other municipal network resource. Ostensibly that would exclude porn.

      The city government has decided to allow a vendor to distribute a service in the cities geographic area. This should sound familiar because it's the same arrangement they already have with whomever provides cable. Said cable service being another likely source of porn...

      ...and it's "subsidizing"
    • City funds pay for a lot of things that could have questionable content.

  • In Canada as well (Score:5, Informative)

    by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <[slashdot] [at] [keirstead.org]> on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:18PM (#7695896)
    My hometown of Fredericton, New Brunswick [fredericton.nb.ca] with it's population of ~81,000 is getting much of the city blanketed with WiFi as well (first city in Canada). And ours is FREE for everyone, which isn't at all true for the city in the article.

    Much of the downtown is already being covered. Next year even they're covering the major malls and other areas.

    When asked, the local ISPs rightly said it probably won't cut into their revenues, because with the amount of people on the free network you'll never get high downstream / upstream speeds, but it'll be great for surfing the web or checking your email on the go from your PDA, nearly anywhere in the city.

    http://www.unb.ca/bruns/0304/12/news/wireless.html [www.unb.ca]

    • Re:In Canada as well (Score:4, Funny)

      by Un pobre guey ( 593801 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:30PM (#7696001) Homepage
      And ours is FREE for everyone, which isn't at all true for the city in the article.

      You goddamn communists! Who ever heard of consumers getting something for free? Is it saturated with ads? Is there a phantom charge on your water bill? Do your local politicians reward someone with inflated contracts ultimately paid for by you? There's got to be a catch.

      • Re:In Canada as well (Score:5, Informative)

        by brunes69 ( 86786 ) <[slashdot] [at] [keirstead.org]> on Thursday December 11, 2003 @09:03PM (#7696304)
        There are no ads. Its free as in "free".

        A while ago the city (like every other major organization on the planet) upgraded its networks and in the process laid a lot of fibre that has been dark for ages. They finally sat up and said "hey why don't we USE this!"

        And the city will be using the network as well, as it says in the article. They will have VPNs over it that will let people like water meter reads operate wirelessly and whatnot. It will probably SAVE taxpayer money.

        It's called "progress". Stop being so damn anal.
        • Forgive him. South of the 49th parallel, we forget that the government is actually capable of doing things for people. Most Americans don't get the Canadian health system either.

    • sure, your wifi is "free" like your Canadian health care is "free".
    • That's awesome. You lucky bum.

      Maybe I'm still a bit wide-eyed, but I'd like to think that citywide (perhaps even nationwide) WiFi access could be the future for mobile internet access. I've had many occassions when I was on the road and wanted to access the web (my electronic encyclopaedia) to do things such as look up stores' websites while shopping, login to my home box to check a program running, get the latest slashdot update (nudge, wink), etc. I'd even accept pop-up ad-ware as a trade for a free,
    • A couple of us [ilesansfil.org] are doing the same in Montreal. Free wifi for everybody - but we need your help :)

  • Cerritos (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 )
    "Yo quiero Pacific Bell"

    No wait ...
  • Woohoo!! Imagine the possibilities! You won't even have to drive around to wardrive! It'll have to be named something else - how about WarCerritosing? No... Warslouching? Hmm... Anyone? Anyone? Beuler? Beuler? ...Beuler?

  • Typical slashdot response. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dominion ( 3153 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:23PM (#7695939) Homepage
    Government planning is just plain socialism and is really bad...

    Unless it results in something really fsck'ing cool.

    mod -1 flamebait

  • Okay, lemme get this straight. We have wireless access points installed on building rooftops with wireless transmission throughout the area. Sounds like SkyNet to me! :0

  • What kind of a city doesn't have a proper telephone exchange? Over here in primitive Europe (thats halfway between New York and I-raq) we have telephone company offices in small towns, as well as cities.

    Yet again, you yanks have some catching up to do.

    • What a crock of low-quality anti-US bollocks.

      1) The post isn't about phone service, it's about high-speed internet

      2) Just try to get DSL in a rural village, or even a smaller town almost anywhere in France, Portugal, Spain, or Greece ...
  • With no broadband, the thought of 51,000 people all sharing a 56k dialup connection sounds appealing.
  • Can we please abandon the phrase "Surf the web" to Sunday supplement columnists and others of a related ilk? I guess it was an apt term years ago when people actually mindlessly followed links, but it just sounds so John Q Public anymore.
    • Can we please abandon the phrase "Surf the web" to Sunday supplement columnists and others of a related ilk?

      I'll second that. I vote for "Ride the information superhighway" as a more serious-sounding expression myself.
    • Yes, let's get rid of a phrase that the general public are happy using and understand what it implies. Then we replace it with some obscure, from their point of view, recursive acronym to satisfy your ego. Much as you might dislike the term it's now in common use and dismissing it solely because you think it is passe isn't a great reason.
      • You must be new here. This is "Slashdot, News for nerds." I think you need to "surf the web" back over to MSN or something where they don't use big complicated words you don't understand.
        • No, I think you misunderstand. The phrase (and concept related to) "surf the web" is in the vocabulary of a large proportion of the general public. Your desire to discard it seems to be driven by elitism. When did nerd become synonymous with snob?
      • Yeah, because, you know, the only use of the Internet, or computers in general is to surf the web. The web is like, the Internet and vice versa. Chat, file transfers, command line interfaces, CD-Rom drives. . .those are all, like, the web you know?

        On that note, I'm tired of all of this elitist jargon regarding travel in a vehicle. Everyone knows when you get an an airplane or get on a bus, it should be called 'riding the Interstate'.

  • Article not entirely true (Score:5, Interesting)

    by webslacker ( 15723 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:46PM (#7696140)
    It's not true that the city is without broadband.

    My parents live in Cerritos and I set them up with DSL before I moved out.

  • Microwaves and Cell Phones (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Eberlin ( 570874 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:48PM (#7696156) Homepage
    It's very very tempting to have a bunch of friends drive around with portable microwaves and cellphones as a new means of DDoSing the city. Anyone know off-hand where the access points are? I kid, I kid!

    It's interesting and convenient, but also gets me a bit paranoid. Those who read the BOFH articles would remember the bit where they used 802.11 to do thinks from changing their calendars on the fly to tracking down where in the building the boss is. Wonder if you can triangulate signal strength, etc. to pinpoint where a particular MAC is at any given time.

  • Cerritos: Guinea Pig of cities (Score:3, Informative)

    by Solarbeat ( 691941 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:49PM (#7696167)
    I no longer live in Cerritos, but my family still does, and parts of the city *do* have DSL service, though much of it is a broadband deadzone. Sad thing is that our cable company is the same as our phone company (at least in much of town), Verizon. So you can guess why cable modem service hasn't been rolled out. This is all despite what should be a great infrastructure because Verizon/Americast rolled out some experiemental high-tech-wizzy video-on-demand services a few years back (that has since been abandoned, I suppose). I wonder why these companies find Cerritos so appealing when it comes to these services? (It's not a very populous city, the per-capita income is high but not the highest, and it's kinda stuck on the edge on la county and orange counties)

  • Some background on Cerritos from a resident (Score:5, Informative)

    by Mike Hawk ( 687615 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @08:52PM (#7696194) Journal
    As a resident of Cerritos for 24 years, let me provide some background information on the town:

    Cerritos is located in the southeast corner of Los Angeles county, just north of Long Beach. The 605(N/S) and 91(E/W) intersect in the northwest corner of town providing incredible freeway access to residents and visitors. Cerritos has borders with the Orange County cities of La Palma and Buena Park, and is 15 minutes from many beaches, so living there provides one an interesting mix of influences from different urban and suburban cultures. I called it a town, there are about 50k residents so I'm not sure what that makes it technically. Cerritos has ended up becoming, IMHO, an interesting oasis in Southeast LA since the decline of the surrounding areas of Compton, Paramount, Lynwood, and the East LA area.

    Greater Los Angeles area residents will surely have heard of the huge Cerritos Auto Square, an early entry into the auto mall type setup (I've heard the first of its kind?). The city also has hosted a mall since early on, the town of only 50k now supports as many as 3 malls, 1 classic mall and 2 major "Town Centre" type establishments. They city subsidized the building of a Sheraton hotel and performance arts center, with the classic motive if you build it they will come. (They have, supporting the brand new commercial complex). The city routinely takes pro-business steps such as this network and the city is remarkably prosperous because of it. The city has a HUGE library of its own, which it just recently upgraded, its own sheriff's station, water utility, 2 high schools, pretty much no service is contracted out to another jurisdiction.

    Now, specifically to this story:

    SOME residents of Cerritos have been able to get DSL for years. I know, I had it. The DSL service is capped at 768/128 due to the type of network in place, not distance. This was a major fight I had with Verizon, I lost but was actually satisfied with their explanation, remarkably. The cable has remained analog, however. Verizon was also the cable provider.

    If I understand the local news correctly, Verizon has lost the cable contract and this new company is coming it. They will be setting up the citywide network and running the cable system. Presumably, they will be securing it themselves since they will be charging for access, so all this security talk is really nonsense at this point. Of course, and home relays could be insecure, but this is nothing new. The city is benefiting since all government agencies (see above about no outsourcing) will now have access through this system. The people benefit from this anywhere in the city access, especially those for whom broadband has been unavailable.

    This probably sounded like a big commercial, but I don't care. I do recommend it as a great place to raise a family. I just moved to Long Beach to be 2 blocks from the shore, but I would go back in a second if the LBC sunk into the ocean.

  • That's nothing.... (Score:1, Interesting)

    by DJ Spencer ( 700392 )
    The California State University system is working under a grant funded program to make wi-fi available over a broadcast wave from northern San Francisco to central California. Basically, you'd be able to access it running down the freeway.

    Any we all know that access to the Internet while driving is just the distraction we need!

  • If Gov. Schwarzeneggar suspects that this is the proto-SkyNet, he will move to shut it down.

    After all, that's what we elected him for: to steer us towards an alternate future!

  • Next step: (Score:4, Funny)

    by jafac ( 1449 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @09:45PM (#7696707) Homepage
    If I were Emporer of Cerritos, I would RIP OUT each and every public phone. I would install VOIP public pay phones using the wireless network.

    I would then load all the payphones into the back of a truck, and send them to the local phone company, with a note telling them about how they could have had their business if they would have just built out their network.

    Then I'd offer discounts to all residents to sign up for the VOIP service, and ditch their phone company land lines.

    Then I'd install Anti-gravity devices under the city, and float it up into the air, and just dump all of the city garbage onto Huntington Beach, or Rolling Hills.
  • I'm really curious why Cable hasn't been available. I have relatives that live a few miles away, in Cypress, and they have no problem getting cable internet. Cerritos is one town over from the Orange County/LA County border, and is right at the junction of the 605 and 91 freeways. It's about twenty/thirty minutes from the beach down Katella Ave... nice place to live if it wasn't so close to Hawaiian Gardens, which is the carjacking capital of LA.
    • so close to Hawaiian Gardens, which is the carjacking capital of LA.

      You can always move to Arizona. Not only do we not have California's economic problems, but carjacking is not nearly the same problem here as in CA. Might have something to do with AZ allowing citizens to apply for and receive CCW permits. The half-life of a carjacker is a lot shorter out here.

  • Not to fast yet... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday December 11, 2003 @09:54PM (#7696763)
    Some thoughts:

    1: All this on only 11 WiFi channels, with only 3 true separate channels? What about people who have private WiFi networks already in place? Do they shut down?

    2: Also, the city has no DSL (can't the phone company just drop in a DSLAM?) or cable broadband. So what are all these WiFi access points connecting into?

    3: What happens when people congregate in one spot. Do the police come along and say, "Move along now, you're clogging the local WiFi node."

  • Probably not as large a coverage area as in Cerritos, but Adelaide, Australia has a wi-fi network covering the CBD, details at http://www.citilan.com.au/ [citilan.com.au].


    Given that it's a city of just over 1 million people, this probably gives more people access. Formal standalone pricing hasn't been announced, access is currently free for members of the sponsoring companies.

  • At Wireless Leiden [wirelessleiden.nl] you can read about a volunteer efford which has already build a complete and city wide WiFi network which is free and open (no logon, just open your laptop and hop on).

    The 34+ nodes cover a medium sized city (120.000 inhabitants). They have been build by volunteers and rely on donated hardware, locations and the odd bit of electricty donated.

    You can fetch the code for a cost of a download (see WiKi: NodeFactory) - all is open source; FreeBSD, OSPF, DHCP, SNMP and SSH are the key bits

Slashdot Top Deals

"More software projects have gone awry for lack of calendar time than for all other causes combined." -- Fred Brooks, Jr., _The Mythical Man Month_

Close