MuniWireless

Novarum tested major 3G services in 13 American cities, including New York, San Francisco, and Chicago, for PC World. The test results reveal that “Verizon’s service showed a combination of speed and reliability, Sprint’s results lent credence to its ‘most dependable’ claim, and AT&T’s network showed fast upload speeds in most cities.” Surprisingly, the number of bars on your phone do not indicate the quality of the connection. Read the PC World article, A Day in the Life of 3G.

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I am staying in an apartment building in San Francisco, which is served by an ISP called Webpass. I became a customer at the beginning of June and have been measuring their upload and download speeds (on my wireless network and via Ethernet cable) via Speedtest.net.

Webpass boasts of being able to deliver up to 100 Mbps symmetrical speeds to my building and up to 45 Mbps in others. In reality, when I’m using the Ethernet cable I get slightly over…

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District will replace energy meters in 600,000 homes and businesses in Sacramento County over the next 2 years with wireless “smart” meters to enable it to monitor in real time the amount of energy use in the county and to meet California’s strict clean energy requirements. The wireless meters will also give residents the ability to control their own energy consumption. The utility has hired Silver Spring, which raised $90 million this year from Kleiner Perkins…

This is an Alvarion white paper entitled “Muni Wireless and the Safe City: Municipal Wireless Networks for Safety, Security and Prosperity.” Please download it from Scribd:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/16258574/Using-wireless-networks-to-improve-public-safety-in-cities

Abstract:

Large-scale metro area networks are becoming an increasingly important tool in providing public services and ensuring public safety and security. Ubiquitous broadband networks have not only proven to be an effective way to support the growing data, voice and video communications needs throughout an entire metropolitan area; they have become a critical element enabling the…

The city of Dundee, Scotland has replaced 100 wired leased lines to public buldings with a point to multipoint WiMAX network. These buildings include libraries, public schools, sports centers and council buildings. For the project, the city used Aerelink, a systems integrator, and Alvarion’s equipment. Eleven base stations, located on council buildings throughout the city, provide connectivity to over eighty outdoor and indoor end user terminals.  In addition, six point-to-point wireless links using Alvarion’s BreezeNET B equipment in the 5.4…

AT&T announced that it will upgrade its existing 3G network to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 7.2. The upgrade is expected to be completed by 2011. The company says that the network upgrade is necessary in order to keep up with increased data traffic from smartphones and netbooks. AT&T also plans to improve coverage by doubling the wireless spectrum dedicated to 3G in most metropolitan areas (to deliver stronger in-building reception and more overall network capacity) and adding thousands of…