WiFI going bust? Wimax coming on strong

Dana · 2007-08-30T15:42:55+00:00

As John Navas posted, a few high profile muni wifi projects are going south. The San Fran project with Earthlink has had some bumps in the past, but it appears that Earthlink has some internal problems and need to restructure their business model anyway.As for the projects themselves, some were a tad bit over ambitious to begin with.San Fran's project is a case in point. The city wanted Earthlink to cover the city and offer free service to everyone. Well equipment and backhaul costs money, hence that was doomed from the start.Had the city used this wirless coverage for Police and Fire departments, and paid for that service, then the city could have offered free service to the people. Of course blanket city wide free service is also not a good idea, they (the city) could have selected areas of town to cover, like say downtown business district, bigger popular parks, the courthouse area, etc.What I am trying to say, is that the technology is sound, but it is the business model being used in places like San Fran that have resulted in the falure of Muni WiFi.Up here in rural alaska Muni Wifi is a great way of bringing high speed access to the people. But instead of covering the entire village, we cover an area around the government building and library, and allow the citizens to use the excess bandwidth, and to use the bandwidth after the government closes for the day.With Wimax coming out, that equipment can be used a a WISP type of solution to cover large areas with less equipment than what is needed with WIFI.

Aug 30, 2007 20 Replies

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Dana 18 years ago

If you are talking about Muni Wifi, that would be incorrect, as some cities have already deployed Muni Wifi systems that work. And other cities are coming online.

Not at all.

They can work together, and they are not the problem.

Private business will not come to a village of 80 people.

Already proven in operational systems.

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