"Muni Wi-Fi KO'd by wrong kind of hills, trees, rain"

Google's launch of a Wi-Fi network in its home town of Mountain View may be delayed, according to reports. The company is scrambling to build more transmitters than it originally planned, notes eWeek's Ben Charny.

It's typical of the delays in getting municipal Wi-Fi projects up and running. Bouyed more by evangelism - and lobbying dollars - rather than reality, Wi-Fi projects are experiencing the kind of issues all too familiar to experienced network engineers.

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"The need for pilots of municipal WiFi seem beyond prudent," Crossman tells us.

San Francisco has additional challenges over Mountain View, he notes.

"Hills, older construction with lead and mesh which significantly reduce penetration of outside signals, and a much higher coverage requirement of 95 per cent outdoors and 90 per cent indoors are significant issues," he says.

Crossman notes that the same technology, Tropos, being used in Mountain View is also planned for San Francisco.

It's the indoor coverage that appears to be the stumbling block.

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John Navas hath wroth:

Indoor coverage? This is beginning to sound like a bad science fiction story. Does any wireless ISP or municipal wireless network claim to provide indoor coverage? Not that I can recall. Maybe it's because Earthlink only seems to know about selling to home users? Checking:

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mention of residential service. It says "roam the city" and "in the field".

The standard solution to any and all wireless mesh network problems seems to be "add more poletop radios", which just creates more interference. I suspect the way it works is the engineering study and original proposal specifies the absolute minimum number of poletops. Once the contract is signed, the hills, trees, and urban canyons are magically "discovered", which requires a substantial increase in the number of poletops and infrastructure. I'm sure the vendors (who helped do the engineering study) are quite thrilled with the prospect of selling more poletop radios. Of course, when it's actually installed, and dead spots are magically discovered, more poletop radios will be the standard answer.

As for rain:

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3. Will inclement weather influence Internet service? The technologies we use are not significantly affected by changing weather conditions when deployed as proposed. Wireless coverage and high-speed backhaul links will be engineered to perform as specified during worst-case weather conditions for the local area. I guess Earthlink wireless is immune to the effects of wet leaves on trees.