MuniWireless

The town of Springfield, Michigan (pop. 5000) began offering Wi-Fi service to its residents this week. Using a $750,000 grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corp., Springfield hired ACD to deploy the network throughout the municipality. ACD is using equipment from Zhone Technologies.

Wi-Fi is already available in some parts of the community; other neighborhoods are scheduled to be “unwired” in the coming weeks. They are charging $10 per month for access. It’s not clear whether residents will have to buy…

Just when you thought everyone’s given up on municipal wireless networks, here comes Zhone Technologies with “high capacity, multi-service” metro Wi-Fi equipment (called SkyZhone) which uses 802.11n, MIMO and best of all, integrated DSL backhaul and line powering. This means you can install a SkyZhone access point anywhere there is a DSL line, no separate power line needed. SkyZhone comes in standalone or combined configurations using the 2.4 GHz and 4.9 GHz frequencies so it can be used for consumer,…