This article addresses why the Connect America Fund should be shut down and what steps can be taken to encourage competition in the market for wired and wireless broadband services. I’ve mentioned many times that I believe our current government is simply clueless. Unfortunately, I’ve come to realize that it’s simply far worse than that. [...]
Tales from the Towers, Chapter 44: Why the Connect America Fund should abolished
April 30, 2013 by 5 Comments
Time Warner Cable to offer free Wi-Fi in Austin, Texas
April 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Time Warner Cable (TWC) will start offering free Wi-Fi throughout Austin, Texas to people who subscribe to its cable service. People who are not subscribers will pay $2.95 per hour. Perhaps it is TWC’s attempt to keep customers from migrating to Google’s upcoming Fiber service. I wonder if Google will offer free WiFi service in [...]
The new challenge for Wi-Fi hot zones: video on smartphones
April 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Large Wi-Fi hot zones have been making news again, in Santa Clara (thanks to the city’s smart meter project), San Jose (free Wi-Fi downtown), Petaluma (free Wi-Fi hot zone), New York City (thanks to Google), and in metro stations, shopping centers and on public transportation. Many cities and private enterprises now have money to roll [...]
O2 WiFi proves highly popular among UK public
April 22, 2013 by 1 Comment
O2, a telecom company that operates WiFi hotspots across the UK says that more adults are now seeking out free public WiFi when they go shopping. O2 conducted a survey of 2000 adults in February 2013 and came up with these findings: Nearly three in five (58%) people admit they connect online when out shopping. Killing [...]
Petaluma free Wi-Fi finally arrives
March 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment
After years of planning (at least since 2007), Petaluma, California is rolling out its free Wi-Fi service in the downtown area. Downtown businesses and local residents have been strong supporters of the free WiFi network. In the past, Petaluma had been engaged in negotiations with Sonic.net to bring WiFi service to the city but those [...]
Free WiFi, thanks to your electric meter
March 27, 2013 by 1 Comment
Who knew that those bland little things attached to your wall to measure the amount of electricity you consume would one day provide free WiFi service to you and your neighbours? We’ve been talking about this on MuniWireless for years and finally, the city of Santa Clara, through the municipal electric utility Silicon Valley Power [...]
Tales from the Towers, Chapter 43: Galactus – Destroyer of Wired Worlds
March 26, 2013 by 2 Comments
I’ve seen projections in our industry range from “the WISP market is dying, we need to move to fiber” up to “new technologies in RF are going to make fiber the horse and buggy of bandwidth industry”. The truth is that the wireless industry is about to put the hurt on the Wired World and [...]
The return of large scale WiFi deployments
March 19, 2013 by 10 Comments
Large scale WiFi projects are on the rebound after a hiatus (and the failure of several cities to complete the rollout of their municipal wireless networks) according to Patrick Nelson in his article, I Want My M-WiFi. There are several reasons: Carriers are using Wi-Fi to offload cellular data traffic. Operators are combining Wi-Fi and [...]
San Jose free WiFi network launches in downtown
March 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The San Jose free WiFi network is now up and running in the city’s downtown area. The city partnered with SmartWave Technologies (systems integrator) and Ruckus Wireless (vendor of WiFi access points) for this project. The city paid $94,000 for the infrastructure deployment and will pay $22,000 in annual maintenance costs. The wireless network relies [...]
Georgia anti-municipal broadband bill goes down in defeat
March 8, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The State of Georgia House of Representatives voted down an anti-municipal broadband bill that would have prohibited municipalities from deploying broadband networks. The bill was sponsored by the usual coalition of telecom incumbents aided by their astroturf organisations, and supported by people who believe that cities should not spend money on critical broadband infrastructure, but [...]
