Municipal wi-fi

[patric]

Oklahoma City finally set up municipal Wi-fi... now that 3G and Wi-Max are more hip.

City unveils new wireless network

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Oklahoma City officials are unveiling what they're calling the largest city owned and operated Wi-Fi mesh network in the world.

The $5 million network system covers a 555-square-mile area. It was funded with money from a public safety capital sales tax and city capital improvement funds.

A demonstration of the new network was scheduled Tuesday afternoon at City Hall.

The network will be used for public safety and other city operations, but does not currently provide wireless Internet access to the public.

Police officers can use the network to access real-time data, while fire officials can locate water hydrants and review site maps and floor plans while responding to fires or accidents.  

[sgrizzle]

Wifi was the wrong way to go with that.

Swing and a miss.

[patric]

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

Wifi was the wrong way to go with that.
Swing and a miss.

I wonder if they just bought up a failed private wifi municipal network?

[sgrizzle]

I heard another city recently shut down. Pennsylvania or summat.

[dbacks fan]

quote:Originally posted by patric

quote:Originally posted by sgrizzle

Wifi was the wrong way to go with that.
Swing and a miss.

I wonder if they just bought up a failed private wifi municipal network?

Having had personal experience with this issue, I will say don't believe what you read. There was a company that provided a city WiFi for Tempe, AZ and gave tem a certain number of IP addresses for the town to use and WiFi hot spots in the town. They then moved to Chandler, AZ next door and gave them the same deal. This started in 2003 I think. They then pitched a deal to Gilbert AZ, that was the same type of arrangement. In the last year or so the company doing the install went belly up, and was picked up by another company that during an upgrade went belly up as well. At one point the whole system went down, and Tempe and Chandler were told that it will be resolved, and the service will continue.

At this time, the system is not supported, and no longer works. Tempe and Chandler have had to make changes and pay for them out of the city budget because there was no back up.

There are companies pitching Municipal WiFi but then going broke, and not able to deliver what they promised.

They offer free Wifi and will install the equipment, but then they ask the municipality to pick up the cost for the electricity off of the street lights or traffic signals where the equipment is mounted.

[nathanm]

quote:Originally posted by dbacks fan


They offer free Wifi and will install the equipment, but then they ask the municipality to pick up the cost for the electricity off of the street lights or traffic signals where the equipment is mounted.

To be fair, that's the least expensive part of running a widespread wifi network.

Installing meters for each of the APs in a mesh installation would be cost prohibitive.

WiFi really is a poor choice for citywide deployments, though.

[mrhaskellok]

What is the best?  WiMax?

[Townsend]

Is this the monorail episode from the Simpsons?

[patric]

If you need city- or county-wide mobile internet now, the choice is either 3G or Ev-DO from the mobile phone operators.  
Upside is faster DSL-like speed, downside is it's much more expensive than it should be, they get crabby if you use it too much, and you have to deal with at&t, Sprint or Verizon (and their 2-year contracts) as your internet provider.

[Gaspar]

You can't travel too far in Tulsa without being in shot of a free wireless network as it is.