Comments on: Guest commentary: what went wrong with muni Wi-Fi, what cities can do now

By: Tim Shea

Tim Shea — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:50:54 +0000

For those of us that have been in the wireless business for a long time, I think most of us recognized this as the re-incarnated Hotspot model, just on a grander scale. It was no surprise to the seasoned wireless business person that this would, in time, fail also. On a number of levels, starting with the technical level….

What I can’t get over personally is why the municipalities thought this would be a long lasting and fruitful relationship. Are they that gullible? And who are these guys that are selling this snake-oil to the Muni’s? Do they have a lick of business sense?

By: Brad Bowman

Brad Bowman — Wed, 28 May 2008 16:16:52 +0000

Really good summary Karl… as you have always been a tremendous asset to this expanding marketplace and for those exploring large scale broadband wireless initiatives.

By: Greg Richardson

Greg Richardson — Sat, 24 May 2008 22:52:45 +0000

What a great commentary, Karl. The industry needs more thoughtful analysis like yours. Keep up the great work!

By: Rory Conaway

Rory Conaway — Wed, 21 May 2008 02:49:58 +0000

One of the areas that fascinated me from the beginning was the fact that municipal broadband assumed only mesh radio equipment. The other was the assumption that even at 40 AP’s per square mile, many people still needed indoor equipment. There were many other false assumptions made technically and financially that also contributed to the demise. When these silly business plans came to market, we stepped back as well as many other companies with designs that were much more solid from technical/financial position. For example, we have a design that is deployable at less than $5K per square mile and even worse case (hills, trees, tall brick houses), less than $10K per square mile. Yearly maintenance and electricity will be less than $50 per unit per year although that varies for each area assuming no pole rental. We also aren’t installing 40 units per square mile which was another major mistake.

Now that the two major failures are out of the way, we are deploying our systems again with the intent on making a profit. Here is what’s even more funny, my little 6 man company made more profit last year in WiFi services than MetroFi and Earthlink combined. Amazing what you can do if you don’t have to give everything away.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:24:58 +0000

Very good summary – we are in exactly the same space here in UK – lots of debate and some good success stories and a lot of ???? what shall we do to make it work, oh its too risky!!