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 [...]
Municipal corporation in India needs WiMAX AMR system
March 12, 2013 by Leave a Comment
A municipal corporation in Surat, Gujarat, India is looking for a WiMAX system for automated meter reading (AMR) of water meters. There are about 9000 water meters of different sizes installed at present. In 2013-20414 they want to install 20,000 more meters. The city area is 335 square kilometres and they would like turnkey solution [...]
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 [...]
Texas City RFI for municipal wireless network
March 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The city of Texas City (pop. 46,000) has released a Request for Information (RFI) for professional services in connection with the design and deployment of a municipal wireless network. 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 [...]
Comcast’s rise coincides with decline in service
February 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment
In Corporate Tie Binds US to Slow Internet (Financial Times), Edward Luce makes the connection between Comcast’s near monopoly in American cities and its active lobbying efforts (not to mention its large campaign contributions to Obama), with the terrible state of broadband service in America: If Dwight Eisenhower had General Motors and George W. Bush had [...]
Staunton, Virginia launches free WiFi service
February 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
The city of Staunton, Virginia (20 square miles or 51 square kilometers; pop. 24,000) is now offering free WiFi in the city’s Gypsy Hill Park (which has a swimming pool and baseball field) and 30 municipal government locations. There are 28 wireless access points in the network, which relies on the fiber network that connects [...]
Telrad buys Alvarion’s WiMAX business for $6.1M
February 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment
How quickly the goddess Fortuna changes her mind! One day, WiMAX is “WiFi on steroids”, a technology that will bury Wi-Fi and cellular technologies, the next day, it’s a “niche technology”, a polite phrase used by people in the tech industry to mean it’s got no future. For those who continue to insist it’s got [...]
