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Wireless Networking Hardware

Madison Rolling Out City-Wide Wi-Fi 153

Posted by Zonk from the charter-will-not-like-this dept.
It doesn't come easy wrote to mention the announcement that Madison, Wisconsin will soon be home to the newest Municipal Wi-Fi network. From the article: "'I made a commitment in 2004 to bring Wi-Fi to Madison,' said Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz in a statement. 'This is an important new service for Madison residents and businesses.' The Madison network will be rolled out at no cost to the city and the providers have secured initial funding from service agreements from ISPs. The initial phase of the Madison network will cover users in the downtown region of the city with plans to later cover the entire city." I love my town. Zombies and Wi-Fi. What more could you want?
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Madison Rolling Out City-Wide Wi-Fi More

Madison Rolling Out City-Wide Wi-Fi

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  • Thanks Zombie Lurch! (Score:3, Funny)

    by conJunk ( 779958 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:30PM (#13860600)
    Well, it looks like yesterday's zombie lurch [slashdot.org] accomplished something for the city!

  • Windows (Score:2, Funny)

    by cachimaster ( 127194 )
    Now even the Windows boxes will turn into zombies

  • Hum... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chickenofbristol55 ( 884806 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:37PM (#13860624) Homepage
    I could just imagine this scene. Brainnnnssss......Brainnnnsss.... Oh my god run for your lives! ZOMBIES.... Wait, what are they doing now? I think they are reading their e-mails, whooo... thank god we are safe for now.

  • Done right for once, I think. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ironsides ( 739422 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:41PM (#13860636) Homepage Journal
    The Madison network will be rolled out at no cost to the city and the providers have secured initial funding from service agreements from ISPs.

    Hmmm... No tax dollars being used, sounds good to me. How are they getting funding? A subscription fee or what?
    • If I remember right, service will cost $5/mo.

      • Re:Done right for once, I think. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Ironsides ( 739422 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @08:04PM (#13860744) Homepage Journal
        Any ideas on if they are capping download speeds, blocking ports, or max download per month? Is this going to be an always on 100k speed or what? This probably won't be for anyone beyond the Joe Sixpack user of email, IM and websurfing. I'm pretty sure no one downloading a linux distro over bittorrent isn't going to be using this.

      • Re:Done right for once, I think. (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        In other words, don't bother looking for free WiFi hotspots in Madison anymore if you are from out of town. All possible incentive to provide it has been squelched by a monopoly, established propped up by the municipal government.

        Yay, socialism!
        • I've felt this way about Fire protection for a long time... Sure you would FEEL like an ass-monger forcing people to pay in exchange for showing up to douse their homes with water but it just seems like a private company could do this better for the people who are paying. I'm thinking a month/annual subscription would be nice.

          I'm sure the less-priviledged would be hurt because they can't afford to protect their assets and families... but then again... I'm hurt because I can't afford a 500 teraflop superco
          • Interesingly enough, fire protection in ye olden dayes was like that, no pay, your house burned down. It got to be a protection racket with the local fire department company/corporation/gang showing up whilst the flames were climbing and demanding an additional fee, and etc shenanigans. The public eventually squawked enough to go volunteer and muni public driven.

            With that said, today, heck ya it might work, we have a model already with private security companies and guards to do what people *think* cops are
            • Hmm, I'm not so sure about that. There are problems with providing public safety and health stuff through private companies. In the case of insurance companies, it's pretty obvious to anyone who is paying attention that market forces are not keeping prices down; in many segments of the insurance industry insurance prices have been going up much much faster than the bottom line.

              But that's a digression. There are plenty of reasons why privatized fire protection is a bad idea. For one, a company's primary
              • You don't necessarily have to have either/or, you could theoretically have both, just like my analogy, you got cops, then a plethora of private security firms and services.

                Another model would put it out for competition, municipally paid for, but based on criteria and price. In addition, many areas have gone to private water provision and sewer from bids, rather than have government run it directly now.

                In other situations, it might even be preferable to having it mostly private, but universally accessible, s
                • Hmm. I'll certainly agree that the driving force behind most government agencies is people wanting to defend their territory. I have some experience working with government beauraucracies, and it's worse than a lot of people even realize.

                  But I don't think it's a natural feature of government; mostly it seems like a by-product of the spoils system. The head of any agency ends up being appointed by whoever just run the election. The previous head gets fired, and the choice of who replaces him/her has as mu
              • In the case of insurance companies, it's pretty obvious to anyone who is paying attention that market forces are not keeping prices down; in many segments of the insurance industry insurance prices have been going up much much faster than the bottom line.

                Out of curiosity, when have market forces ever applied to insurance companies?

                My auto liability insurance is mandated by the state. My health insurance is collectively purchased by my company (because the state offers tax incentives to company plans they d


          • Isn't this what taxes do?


            • No. Taxes are a way of providing things for people who can't afford them, while getting the wealthier members of society to foot the bill. This constitutes a very small percent of the population personally funding something that is being used by all of the population. The result is that nobody gets decent service because it's grossely underfunded.

              It also has the byproduct of ripping off the wealthier members of society by taking WAY more than it gives back.

              I can understand why the police-force needs to b
        • Nah, I think you'll be fine. Almost all of the current wi-fi hotspots in the downtown area (coffee shops, mostly) get most of their business from students at the University. All of the students I know are way too bandwidth-obsessed to be content with municipal wireless, and since they tend to crowd 4 or 5 people into an apartment, a 3Mbit cable/DSL connection isn't particularly expensive to them. Assuming that the municipal wi-fi will be billed per user or per computer rather than per household, it reall
          • Most of the area they are covering is just too saturated with free hotspots and people whose unprotected networks are named 'linksys.' As someone who lives outside the coverage area, I certainly wouldn't pay for it. I'm already getting pretty much exactly the same service for free, though I'll grant I'm not getting it from anyone in particular.

            On that note, how are they going to deal with interference from other wireless users? Are they going to use something other than 802.11b/g? Is the city going to
            • On that note, how are they going to deal with interference from other wireless users?

              That's easy. They'll flood the area with so much RF signal that no other network will be useful, and all other wireless nets will simply go away, as the grandparent AC predicted. Problem solved, and everybody gets to become a paid subscriber to get something which they once got (better) for free.

              Congratulations, Madison.

      • Re:Done right for once, I think. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by SeventyBang ( 858415 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @09:35PM (#13861097)


        Dvorak had a fit a few issues ago because (Philadelphia?, Pittsburgh?) was going to put up a muni.net and some of the commercial enterprises realized they could earn a lot more by charging what an ISP is expected to charge instead of some paltry sum (or nothing). He later said these folks created some leverage^w^w a PAC and convinced the state legislature to pass some bill which would give the commercial folks the right of first refusal for any of these setups (and IIRC, something ungodly like fourteen months to decide). The Gov signed and Pennsylvania now looks to be locked tighter than a nun.

        Can anyone substantiate this? (and how would this affect the apparent plans of a nationwide Google muni.net?)


    • This is a good thing (to the city of Madison anyway.) I am a DSL victim here in Madison and the thought of a relativity cheap alternative to the local telcos would be great! I worked on the University of WI campus for 10 years and the idea of an alternative option would rock. If they fail, they'd fail because they can't provide. I have TDS, and I am pretty happy. The idea of a company having sole access to a market to a market frightens me. The more options the better! Now the way it sounds, if you pay, y
    • This is really stupid, like 70-80% of people have access to a computer, way more than have access to a car. (Because Duh Kids)

      Most people use less than 1% of their theoretically bandwidth and you are complaining about using tax dollars on this?

      You'll get it back in lower fees from the teleco's that don't have to run last mile connections.

      People who don't think AT ALL about how this benefits everyone before complaining about taxation, well I guess they are right wing.

  • Milwaukee To Get Better Treatment (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SEGT ( 880610 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @07:42PM (#13860642)
    Midwest Fiber Networks is going to build a wifi system for the city at no cost to tax payers. Once the system is up they will rent it out to various service providers who can then charge whatever fees for access they wish. More information found here [fcw.com].
  • I love my town. Zombies and Wi-Fi. What more could you want?

    Maybe if winter wasn't 8 months each year?

    • Re:What more could you want? (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Maybe if winter wasn't 8 months each year?

      Who cares? You've got fresh cheese pouring in and the largest waterpark in the world an hour north. Not to mention that you've got some great indoor waterparks up in the Dells as well. (For wintertime fun.) Now if only the "New China International" restaurant had not gotten sold and renamed to the "Zodiac". That used to be like the best Chinese Buffet in town. Now it's just so-so.
    • Maybe if winter wasn't 8 months each year?

      Obviously you've never been there, or you wouldn't make such a dumb ass statement. Winter has been pretty mild around WI for quite awhile now. (must be that global warming thing) Now, if you go up north.. that's a different story! I relocated to Montana and winters are much more mild. Of course, you do not have ANY professional sports, (as in NFL, NBA, MLB) no decent cheese, snacks, and alot of other stuff I miss. Yep, I'll be moving back soon. ;)

      Dana
    • ...at least it makes the zombies sluggish.
  • Slashdot. All about Madison, all the time!
  • Put a server chip in each of them. Then we can play zombie wars.
  • .... i wish :/

    (untill then i will just have to stick with my $2 a month, 100mbit internet)

  • Good news (Score:5, Informative)

    by cdrguru ( 88047 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @08:09PM (#13860768) Homepage
    This is perhaps a competitive service to cable and DSL. Unfortunately, it is probably just that, with lower capacity. Let's see, what happens when there are 20 people on the same accept point? You get something that works fine for someone in a Starbucks trying to read email and something that doesn't work at all for downloading the latest 12MB update from Microsoft.

    WiFi even at G levels has a maximum bandwith of 54Mb/sec, which translates to about 6MB/sec. Wow, 6MB a second, that's better than most cable systems, right? Wrong. 6MB a second for the access point. This is divided up amongst all the users within range, and possibly over a significant area if each individual access point doesn't have it's own 6MB/sec Internet connection.

    In a real-world implementation with some kind of mesh network and relatively few hard-wired connections between them, you are going to quickly run out of bandwidth when people use this as an alternative to a wired connection. Therefore, this isn't any competition at all and serves to just allow people to connect when away from home.

    The likelyhood that this will be used as a cheap alternative to a hardwired connection is high. Therefore, there is a high likelyhood that the service will suck from the moment it is turned on.

    • Wow, 6MB a second, that's better than most cable systems, right? Wrong. 6MB a second for the access point. This is divided up amongst all the users within range, and possibly over a significant area if each individual access point doesn't have it's own 6MB/sec Internet connection.

      You've forgotten about contention ratio. Basically, users aren't using all their bandwidth all the time.

      Common contention ratios are 20:1 or 50:1. In other words one 6MB link can proved 2M service for up to 150 users simultaneou

    • The speed may be poor to you, but you have to realize that a system like this one should self-regulate itself in terms of the number of users and the speed. Much like traditional supply and demand, each person in Madison will have a point at which he/she finds the price/speed ratio to be favorable. For some, low prices are enough incentive despite low bandwidth. To others it isn't, and they will stick to their hardwired services.

    • Most DSL/cable service, especially in the US, is rated in megabits, not megabytes.

      So, the 54 mbps that you get on wireless is compared to the same 1.5 mbps that you're likely to get off DSL.

      Doesn't matter anyway, because unless they have multiple T1s or a T3 connected to those access points, it's not going to support a wide number of users.

      However, let's give a little faith to the people that put this together. They aren't the first city to figure out wireless, and likely will learn from many other mistake
    • WiFi even at G levels has a maximum bandwith of 54Mb/sec, which translates to about 6MB/sec. Wow, 6MB a second, that's better than most cable systems, right?

      Am I misreading what you wrote or are you confusing megabit and megabyte [wikipedia.org]? A 54Mbps local wireless networks are a magnitude faster then a DSL, Cable or T-1 connection (128Kbps - 6Mbps).
  • I love my town. Zombies and Wi-Fi. What more could you want?

    How about this Halloween you don't have RIOTS [archive.org] ??

    Kudo's to Madison thought, I have a chance to park between Monona and Mendota everytime I go visit the folks. Downtown Wisconsin is actually a rather nice place to hang out with a lot of eateries, coffee shops, and "bars". Not to mention with UW Madison sitting in the heart of downtown as well, this network will see heavy useage.

    • No riots?

      What would a State Street Halloween be without drunk college students having keg parties, peeing in the lawns, burning couches in the street, smashing store front windows, and then choking on a little teargas and pepper spray?

      I mean... shesh - it's like you were expecting a civilized town or something?
    • I'm going to call bullshit on this one. I live in downtown Madison, and the "riots" during the Halloween bash are blown way out of proportion. Last year it was a group of about five jackasses visiting from some other Big 10 school (Purdue, IIRC) that got a little rowdy. The other 80,000 - 100,000 people behaved themselves just fine.
      • There were 250 arrests and 20 people were hospitalized ... forgive me if I think you are a bit naive.

        • The vast majority of those arrested do not attend the university.

          According to the Badger Herald [badgerherald.com]: "A total of 448 arrests were made, with only 57 identified as UW students, a figure representing 12.8 percent of the total arrests."

          • Well, I'm not a brilliant UW-Madison student, but I'm pretty sure that 57 is more than 5 (which is what the grandparent post claimed was the TOTAL number of rioters.)

            And that's just the number who were actually arrested. If you think only 57 UW students rioted, you've clearly got cheese in your head.


      • It's because they don't let the Purdue people out loose very often.

        Here are the usual directions to Purdue: "go North until you smell it, West until you step in it."


  • 'I made a commitment in 2004 to bring Wi-Fi to Madison,' said Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz in a statement. 'This is an important new service for Madison residents and businesses.'

    A politician who kept his word!? What is this world coming to? First open source software, then municipal WiFi, and now an honest politician. You know it is getting a little chilly [wunderground.com] right now. I better get my spare blankets ready; Lucifer might want his favor returned soon.


    • You never know...is there any privacy policy associated with this network? I'd be worried about invasive spying by various agencies...to track dissi^Wterrorists, of course.

  • Wireless Bandwidth on a single VHF frequency (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NewKimAll ( 923422 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @08:35PM (#13860867)
    From what I understand, the standard bandwidth for VHF television will be going away pretty soon to get re-allocated. If the FCC were to allow the bandwidth for just one television station to be used wirelessly, how much bandwidth would that be per channel? Does anyone know?

    Could this be a possibility when people decide that 54G is still too slow to serve enough people at any given access point?
    • Well, IIRC, it's 7MHz per channel.. depends on your modulation and coding.

      I've found a link with a bit of information on what bitrate digital TV over CODFM achieves:

      e.g. 64 QAM code rate 2/3 and guard interval 1/32 equals a rate of 24.13 Mbit/s

      http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:wjCVgZM_gDgJ: www.theiabm.org/pdffiles/digital.cofdm.pdf+codfm+b andwidth+bitrate&hl=en&client=firefox-a [64.233.187.104]

    • It's the UHF spectrum which is being reallocated, above channel 51. VHF is channels 2-13.

      A TV channel is 6MHz (not the 7MHz below). Theoretical throughput depends on the signal to noise ratio (as Nyquist says). Practical throughput also depends on additional factors like the signalling and ability to spatially share bandwidth (i.e. co-interference between users). But perhaps you could assume that if the 5MHz bandwidth of a 802.11g/a channel can do theoretically 54MBits (and actually 25MBits), then a 6MHz ch
      • I think the biggest prolbem with municipal WiFi is the inability to share bandwidth well. I mean, the guy next door to me will download movies off the internet all day, because it's free. And that means I lose out.

        Not necessarily. While there may be an aggregate bandwidth of 6 Mbps, it's pretty easy to throttle bandwidth so that each recipient gets an equal, or perhaps a maximum amount of bandwidth.

        I'd suggest breaking down muni service to two levels:

        1) Free for all, anonymous. 128 Kbps without questions, e
    • An interesting question: one which I don't know the answer to offhand. For what it's worth, the latest issue [ieee.org] of IEEE's Spectrum magazine has a good article on the reallocation [ieee.org] and what the end of analog TV will mean.

      In the end, I doubt that municipalities will be able to get ahold of much of the allocated spectrum for this kind of use. They will get a large slice of it for their own use, but will mostly be given over to emergency bands - like 911. On the open market, I doubt that municipalities will b

  • I planted this idea (Score:2, Informative)

    by bmasel ( 129946 )
    in Cieslewicz' brain, when we were both running for the State Assembly in 1992, he in the Dem. primary, where he lost to now Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, while I was just fooling around in the Republican Primary.
  • I live here. This is a waste. The city has been in the RED for years now and it wants to take this ON!?!?? WTF Madison is a pretty connected city. It needs to save the money and put it towards other things instead of this crap.
  • If I'm not mistaken, Madison has a pretty healthy party scene for the kiddies?

    Add wireless and the possibilities are endless. Real time advertising of the night's 'all you can drink' specials: expect to a see a entrepreneur marketing a 'live ratio' (M/F) count app of the establishments to avoid a night of Octoberfest (plenty of beer and plenty of sausage).

    This is like Strange Brew meeting Snowcrash.

  • this will be interesting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ScottSCY ( 798415 ) on Sunday October 23, 2005 @09:02PM (#13860959)
    I'm very interested to see how this plays out and how effective it will be. I've spent a lot of time in madison (my girlfriend lives there), and it's one of the most spread out cities I've seen. They apparently have a law there (or city ordinance?) that no building can be taller than the capitol. It seems like having a city be so spread out would present some problems to deploying wifi on a large scale. Another thing is the UW campus takes up a large part of the downtown, and a large percentage of the people who hang around downtown are students. So, don't most already have wireless through the university? Is there really a need for city-wide wireless? Just a few thoughts.
  • That's about the sum of it. If there is anyway that municipal WiFi can go bad, he will find it. This man is driving our cities bars out of business, shooting small business owners in the foot, and only increasing the likelihood of the holloween riots. In addition to numerous other incidents that he has handled in the worst possible way.

    Luckily there are a few local groups that are pushing for an impeachment. Its doubtfull that they will succed, but hopefully they'll put enough heat on the city alders that D
  • http://www.fred-ezone.ca/ [fred-ezone.ca]

    Fredericton, my home has been running and expanding it's free WiFi for the last few years. Cisco just did a film showcasing the work. For the record, both cable and DSL are offered by paid services in the city. AFAIK the free wifi has not affect them too much and if anything as maybe prompted them to offer much faster speeds to compete.

  • I live in a mountainous regoin that makes it really hard to have any type of wi-fi implemented. When will there be options for the rest of us?
  • Zombies and Wi-Fi. What more could you want?

    Cheese?

  • And the WiFi Access Points be networked by... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The Bridges of Madison County!

    Oh boy that joke was so bad I posted as AC...

  • same company working on madison and google wifi (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Did anyone notice that wireless facilities is working on both the madison and google projects for city wide wifi? Guess that they must be big players inthis.l
  • Do these kind of wireless tech cause a lot of interference for HAM's or scientific frequencies?
  • What kind of authentication and encryption protocol will they use? IEEE 802.1x? PPPoE? (Just WEP? :P)
  • This is not the municipal WiFi a lot of people seem to think it is.

    There is no free service for anyone.

    Two companies are paying the local power utility Madison Gas & Electric (MG&E) to place the antennae on street lights. At first, it will just cover the downtown area and expand later.

    There is no free service. Pricing is still unknown, but it is supposedly going to be competitive with local DSL and Cable services. In other words: Expensive.

    Visiting business people will not be able to

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