MuniWireless

The partnership that sponsors Pittsburgh’s downtown Wi-Fi network has a new three-year contract with a new operating partner who isn’t charging it a dime for service.  The good news for Pittsburgh residents came last week when aspStation formally announced the contract it signed with the partnership in January.

aspStation has already run the network for the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership for the past four months without charging the partnership.  Company President Ed DeHart described his company’s decision to operate the network at no cost as “a…

Brough Turner, chief technology officer at NMS Communications, recently drilled into the working paper from the New America Foundation,  Wireless Pittsburgh: Sustainability of Possible Models for a Wireless Metropolitan-Area Network . 

He criticizes the report, saying that in its analysis of sustainability it fails to mention “technology evolution or adoption rates of competing broadband services, i.e. cable and telco (DSL or FiOS).” He notes we’ve see Wi-Fi speeds rising as high as 100 Mbps in some of the products released  in advance of the IEEE’s adoption of…

The Wireless Future Program of The New America Foundation has posted video from the webcast, The Two States of Pennsylvania, they hosted this week on the challenges of planning and deploying municipal wireless networks. The webcast, which is archived on The New America Foundation’s web site, offers good insights into issues that range from spectrum policy reform to  legislative barriers to community wireless networks.

The group also distributed its recent research paper, The Philadelphia Story: Learning from a Municipal Wireless Pioneer, and a working paper on Wireless…

The mayor of Pittsburgh, Pa., next week is expected to issued a request for information from companies with ideas about how to offer free Internet access across the city.The mayor of Pittsburgh, Pa., next week is expected to issued a request for information from companies with ideas about how to offer free Internet access across the city.

The proposal great expands the free downtown wireless Internet hot zone that went live last fall. The hot zone is operated by US Wireless…