MuniWireless

Residents of the Calgary neighborhood of Hawkwood can now get free Wi-Fi access throughout their community and they can upgrade their service at lower prices than the traditional ISPs, says Wi-Fi provider GoNaeco. Every resident and business using the GoNaeco network also has access to a community portal site, featuring community-specific news, events and local advertising.

In addition to City of Calgary, GoNaeco has also secured approval from neighboring communities to deploy these networks. GoNaeco is using equipment from Strix Systems;…

Winncom Technologies, a value- added distributor of wireless equipment, has a new distribution agreement with Wavion Wireless Networks for North American customers. Wavion makes Wi-Fi base stations that use spatially adaptive beam-forming technology. Read the full announcement here.

According to Wavion, the WBS-2400 and WBS-5800 Wi-Fi Base Stations, which utilize digital beam-forming and Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) technology, allow service providers, communities, and enterprises to provide coverage for two to three times larger area than conventional access points.

For a limited time, Winncom…

I spoke to Steve Reneker, CIO of Riverside, California, about the status of the citywide Wi-Fi network that AT&T and MetroFi deployed in May 2007. AT&T wants to give the network back to the city, but the city council must decide on 16 March 2010 whether to agree. It is controversial: the city must pay for the cost of maintaining the network which provides free access in Riverside. The Inland Empire, as the region is called, has been hard hit…

Kyushu University and PicoCELA Inc., both based in Fukuoka City, Fukuoka Prefecture, have developed and put into use technology to build a wide-area wireless LAN at a dramatically reduced cost. The newly developed wireless multihop backhaul connects multiple wireless LAN access points to make them work with one another as a single radio network, cutting back on installation costs by reducing wiring for Internet connection. Wireless access points were installed in the commercial complex Canal City Hakata, resulting in the successful operation…

On Fridays from 8am – 10am San Francisco time, Esme Vos will be taking calls from people who are looking to deploy: (a) large scale wireless networks (Wi-Fi, WiMAX, etc.); (b) fiber networks; (c) blend of fiber and wireless. If you are a city, county, government agency, Native American tribe, school, hospital, hotel and convention complex, port, industrial zone, community wireless group and anyone else interested, please call me at +1 650 384 5200.

Why should you call?

- If you are…

Amtrak has issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for a communications platform including passenger Wi-Fi in its trains all over the US. Amtrak will issue another RFQ shortly after this one to support automated on-board signage, announcements and end-of-car displays that use the communications platform. Then it will issue a national task order RFP. Below is an excerpt from the RFQ.

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1. Purpose of Request for Qualifications (RFQ)

Amtrak is seeking to identify a complete…