http://www.muniwireless.com/2010/05/28/us-internet-takes-over-riverside-wifi-network/

So maybe you will see an improvement. Please report back and let us know if it’s working again. I guess AT&T never made Riverside’s network a priority.

Good riddance?

It takes conservatively $200K/sq mile, and that’s before you get into marketing, customer support, and recurrents. Did Metrofi/AT+T anticipate that this would be $11 million just for the hardware/install?

Then there’s the folly of trying to cover such enormous areas in the first place with Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi is a local, limited technology. It is low powered, operating in open unlicensed spectrum. It will not go through trees or buildings. It will be subject to variable RF interference from contending networks.

To build a Wi-Fi network as though it was a cell network is misguided, and it sets up all sorts of unreasonable expectations — like that you can connect anywhere.

Wi-Fi must be deployed with these limitations in mind. If the City of Riverside proposes to take over the network, it should take the top ten locations in Riverside, places where people naturally gather — schools, main streets, libraries, job centers — and seek a sponsor on the basis of that. Put together a package that emphasizes that this is about wireless community revitalization. Jobs, jobs, jobs. The ‘ask’ must be something concrete and compelling if they are to find a sponsor.

Whatever gear was laid out is now probably getting close to worthless since it is now at least two years old, and probably older. 802.11N will help the cost/quality immensely.

Riverside can regroup. The fact that they still would have AT+T’s backbone and antenna locations is really a good place to start.

A sponsor is needed, but a sponsor may be gotten if Riverside focuses on things that sponsors would want. Maybe its a device company that wants to showcase their smart phones. Maybe with a local community portal you could bring health, educational, and public services info to people (it’s not about access, but where you are, your community). Perhaps Riverside becomes a testing ground for local search, for experimenting with all kinds of local applications, services, hyper local ads, things that a Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! or any consumer goods company would find attractive.

By no means should the network continue as is — that 55 square miles. It was misconceived and would be an albatross.

If the City is willing to seek a sponsor, they should ask AT+T for unlimited bandwidth for free, locations for gear, and rebuild the network in a top ten list of locations, and have each listed in the sponsor package, with its benefits.