The problem with registration screens is that they destroy the mobile user experience. You are on your iPhone and want to look quickly at a map to see where the museum or restaurant is located. You connect to the Wi-Fi network and bam! Registration screen. Most of the time, I give up.

GOWEX has entered into agreements with municipalities and private firms to offer Wi-Fi service in different countries. Some of these networks are both free and paid.

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•  Coral Springs is upgrading its existing wireless network, which currently serves city hall, public buildings and the water plant for around $250,000. For an additional $55,000, they will add Wi-Fi service to public parks.
  
• Delray Beach upgraded its public Wi-Fi network for $90,000 to improve reception.
• Hallandale Beach offers free Wi-Fi at Foster Park and has plans to deploy networks in other parks.
• Broward County has been offering Wi-Fi in a section of Fort Lauderdale, campgrounds and some county buses.

If you represent a municipality and are thinking of deploying a new large-scale Wi-Fi network or upgrading your existing network, before you go ahead with your RFP or place an order with a vendor, please read: The Challenge for Wi-Fi Hotzones – Video on Smartphones.

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If you are in Santa Clara, you will find the network SSID as SVPMeterConnectWiFi. Linkpath Communications designed and installed the WiFi part of this network; they are also responsible for customer service and maintenance of the WiFi network.

By making the network available to the public, SVP has enabled residents and visitors to use tablets and smartphones with standard Wi-Fi connections to access the Internet throughout the outdoor areas of Santa Clara. Replacing an outdated and limited system that only served parts of the city, Santa Clara Free Wi-Fi provides access to residents as well as the tens of thousands of workers who commute to the city to work for companies that form the cornerstone of the high-tech industry.

SVP’s smart grid program, SVP Meter Connect uses Tropos Networks wireless access points and software, and other equipment from ABB (the power/automation systems integrator). ABB acquired Tropos Networks last year. Tropos has sold wireless access points over the past few years to many cities and counties that were deploying municipal wireless broadband networks.

The SVP MeterConnect program at Santa Clara includes the Tropos field area communications network and an AMI system. In addition to supporting AMI and public Wi-Fi access, SVP plans to eventually use the network to support additional smart grid applications, including distribution automation and mobile workers. In the future, the City plans to use the same network to provide mobile access for municipal field workers (public safety, building and fire inspectors, parks and recreation, and more), reducing operational costs versus cellular cards and delivering greater bandwidth.

Other articles that might interest you:

Securing the IP of IP Smart Grid Security and Cyber Wars begin: is the Power Grid next?: Don’t forget security! With all the hacking going on, it’s only a matter of time that hackers will attack the smart grid.

Santa Clara muni WiFi network gets a second chance

Kansas power company uses Tropos for smart grid demo program

New Tropos 1410 Delivers Secure Field Area Networks for Smart Grid and Other Industrial Applications

UK issues public tender for smart grid communications network

Burbank Smart Grid upgrade includes citywide WiFi

A Perfect Match: Wi-Fi plus automated meter reading (AMR)

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See also: San Jose upgrading muni WiFi network (March 2012)

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RFI City of Texas City Municipal Wireless Network 2013

The RFI seeks a Consultant to help build a public Wi-Fi network in certain areas in the city. The Consultant will provide all professional design, build, oversight and related services necessary to complete the scope of work. The Consultant will develop the necessary design documents and provide full project administrative duties as necessary for the installation of the Texas City public wireless network.

The preferred network model would be a privately owned Wi-Fi network operated, maintained, supported and upgraded at reasonable cost to the City of Texas City. The City envisions being able to sell advertising on the landing page where users are initially logged on and/or asked to agree to terms of service.

Responses to the RFI are due no later than 5:00 PM, Central Standard Time, Monday, March 18, 2013. Details of the RFI, including technical requirements, coverage, project schedule, pre-conference date and address for sending your response are set forth in the Texas City RFI.

Please check MuniWireless for amendments and updates.

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Read more: Public WiFi finds a home in Virginia city

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There are four culprits:

(1) Monopoly broadband providers (the incumbent telecom operators and cable companies): What else do you expect them to do? These are the originators of the Plague and will continue spreading the Plague unless extreme measures are taken to quarantine them.

(2) State legislators who believe that the public sector should not spend tax money on broadband infrastructure, but should instead shower such largesse on sports stadiums, sports teams and wealthy sports stars;

(3) Small local broadband operators who do not lobby their state legislatures to do two things: set up a competitive, low cost wholesale fiber broadband network and open it up to small players like themselves at reasonable prices. I have discovered that many of these small operators have swallowed the “free market/government out of everything” mantra without carefully thinking through exactly where government can be of great help and where it can’t; and

(4) The People: Yes, the mysteriously absent “People” who complain about the high price of DSL and cable Internet access but do nothing whatsoever to force their elected representatives to create a truly competitive broadband market. The same People would rather see sports stadiums subsidised by their precious tax monies. The same people veto government spending on fiber broadband infrastructure while paying exorbitant amounts of money to the cable and DSL incumbents.

I have been writing about anti-municipal broadband bills since at least 2004. Nine years later, they keep popping up, like the Black Death, even though I and a coalition of many other people have had a hand in defeating some of the worst ones.

Structural separation is the ONLY solution: an open fiber-based broadband infrastructure that is not owned by any of the incumbents, but owned by the public, maintained at the public expense, and leased wholesale to private companies that deliver wired and wireless broadband service to all. In areas where there are few people and no private company can hope to deliver wireless or wired broadband service without going bankrupt, government should step in to provide incentives to do so and help make the business of broadband viable.

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According to Google, the company spent only $115,000 to build the network (this sum includes the cost of the access points). Annual maintenance costs $45,000. Google paid two-thirds of the cost of the network, and the Chelsea Improvement Company paid for the rest. This has nothing to do with Google’s fiber projects in other parts of the US.

I am sure mayor and city council members across the country are salivating over the prospect of a revival of muni WiFi — courtesy of Google. Remember that several years ago, Google launched the Mountain View, California Wi-Fi network, free of charge to users. Mountain View is the location of Google’s headquarters. After that, Google focused its efforts on building a fiber network in Kansas City, MO and Kansas City, KS where it is now offering 1 Gbps service.

There’s already lot of free WiFi in New York City, notably in cafes.

Recommended reading:

Free WiFi hotzone in NYC: DUMBO neighborhood, Brooklyn

NYC parks get free WiFi

Time Warner Cable offers NYC customers free access to Wi-Fi hotspots

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