Why Municipal Wi-Fi Networks have Been Such a Flop 236
Jake Melville from Slate shot us a link to one of their stories that outlines why municipal wi-fi failed but also tells of the too-rare success stories. While cities that left their wi-fi in the hands of the private sector fell prey to the "last-mile" problem, grassroots efforts such as that in St. Cloud, FL, have blossomed.
The Minneapolis Rollout (Score:5, Informative)
Is coming along with nary a hitch, as far as I can tell. They started late last year, have a good chunk of the city up and running under it already, and should be done with the whole project by the end of the year. I don't have any real-world experience with it (I live in St. Paul), but I haven't heard anything but good about it, so far.
Seriously, the city is making setting up wifi look about as difficult as slapping together legos; I can't figure out how these other cities have managed to screw it up so badly.
And the St. Paul city government just voted to go with a fiber optic rollout for their municipal broadband. Of course, no word on where the $200+ million is going to come from to pay for it, so it's really just vaporware at the moment.
But God knows there's enough fiber laid down out there up to the curb. It's been almost ten years since they buried those suckers; might as well light plug 'em in and see how well they light up.
Get a bloody repeater, mate (Score:5, Informative)
Um... get a WiFi Repeater [wi-fiplanet.com]?
My access point is in an upstairs bedrom. If I want direct line of sight from my shed, no signal, an old brick washhouse is in the way. So I got a thirty-quid repeater (actually just a regular access point switched into "repeater" mode) and installed that on the corner of the washhouse (in view of both the bedroom AND the shed). Now 100% signal in the shed.
There really isn't any magic to installing a WiFi repeater. Plug in to your PC, configure over a web browser with the SSID and encryption key, disconnect from your PC, plonk it somewhere where it can see both you and an original access point. Job done.
If I can figure this out in my 100-year-old farmworkers' cottage in rural England, I'm sure as hell you can figure it out in a modern US city gated community. It really, really isn't hard.
geneva switzerland is a success story (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.freepress.net/news/25957 [freepress.net]
Re:No money = no wifi (Score:2, Informative)
X11 requires good bandwidth and low latency.
If you were in Germany and assuming your university is in the U.S., the sheer latency kills X11 protocol regardless of the bandwidth.
Sun Ray, VNC, ICA(Citrix) and Remote Desktop protocols works over these links. Try one out.
Re:Long story short: (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, no. Until the government got involved -- over the LOUD protests of the private utilities -- electrical service in rural areas was virtually non-existent. Pretty much like exactly like broadband and Wi-Fi today in fact. Read this Wikipedia link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Utilities_Service [wikipedia.org]
Re:Does not need discussion (Score:2, Informative)
Germany, 1988 'error in construction'
Austria, 1976 'Concrete of the column had never been examined, was internally totally destroyed'
Bridges break. Human construction, on either side of the pond, is not infallible.
wisp coops are the way to go (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Minneapolis Rollout (Score:2, Informative)
The wi-fi has already had unforseen benefits as the new wi-fi was used during the rescue effort [computerworld.com] after the Interstate 35W bridge collapse.
Re:Oulu, Finland, panoulu network (Score:3, Informative)
There is no real competition between PanOULU network and home internet access. People prefer fast internet access from home and public WLAN network comes in when you go mobile for studies, work or other activities. As a active PanOULU user I've had very positive experience of the network and it plays important part on my studies as I don't need to use time finding internet access anywhere on school, libraries or other public locations. Just open my laptop and I'm online.
They've gone so far with it, providing PanOULU hotspots in couple of bus lines as well. It's build on soon-to-be country wide Flash-OFDM network and provides constant transfer speeds around 60 kB/s (kilobytes not bits).
Whatever they say about municipal Wi-Fi failing, I tell you otherwise based on my own experience on one of the world's most advanced city networks.
Re:wisp coops are the way to go (Score:2, Informative)
Re:The Minneapolis Rollout (Score:4, Informative)
I agree the Minneapolis roll out seems to be going very well. I live in Minneapolis and here is why I think it is working:
- They chose a smaller company (USInternet) to do the build. This means the company is committed to customer service and building their reputation, rather than just extending their monopoly like the big telecos would have tried to do.- The City of Minneapolis set itself up as the biggest customer of the network, to provide network access for public services throughout the city. That way, USInternet has a guarenteed customer base that is large enough to make the network work, even if few other people sign on. At the same time, Minneapolis gets a wireless network that is cheaper to lease from USInternet than it would be for Minneapolis to build it themselves internally.
- The service is not free, but still half of what existing ISPs are charging. This gives USInternet a growing source of revenue as the network grows.
- US Internet is building a network in a modular fashion, which makes it easy for them to move things around and upgrade parts, even mix in WiMax in the future, as the needs change.
So good technology, sound financial planning, and finding the right company seem to be what is making the Minneapolis network happen.