It’s not the first time that pole attachment issues have delayed municipal Wi-Fi projects. Hopefully by now, enough municipalities have learned that it pays to do their homework before putting out a bid. The deployment of the Aurora, Illinois municipal wireless broadband network has been delayed by pole attachment issues — figuring out who actually owns the rights to the poles and getting power to the wireless nodes during the day when the lights are turned off.
James Granelli of the Los Angeles Times has written about similar delays in Southern California because the local power company dragged its feet on giving access to poles to municipalities that wanted to mount wireless nodes. Fortunately, in Los Angeles, the city owns the rights to the poles so that won’t be a barrier to deployment.
No comments yet.