This may show a bit of the down side of Mpls being
"ahead of the curve" with some technology. Mpls PD
was one of the first departments to start using Mobile
Data Terminals (MDT's), back in the Bouza days. Most
of the various County Sheriff's, including Hennepin
have had MDT's for at least a decade, so has State
Patrol. Most of these have used their own dedicated
radio channel and either evolved the technology or
switched over to private commercial wireless cellular
carriers as time has gone on.
It looks like a lot of these other city's are
developing Wi-Fi networks as they've built new systems
from scratch, like the CAPWIN project in DC. The
public access aspect being a positive side affect of a
primarily governmental system. Unfortunately for us,
most of these "governmental issues" have already been
built, at least to some effect which removes a big
motiviation to invest in new infrastructure.
Mpls utilities:
Water (& Sewer) - small modem that dials up Mpls
public works server using resident's phone line.
Electric - Xcel built out their own micro RF network a
few years back, meters all report wireless through
this. These are the grey boxes with antennas mounted
on all the electric poles (different then Ricochet).
Gas - Reliant uses very low power transponders mounted
in the meter, their truck drives around and sends a
"wake up" signal, meter transmits billing information
to the truck.
Richochet - These are the white boxes with antennas
mounted on the street light poles. The company spent
over a billion $$ to post these nationwide and then
went "splat". Infrastructure still exists, but maybe
too dated/inflexible. New company bought holdings
for pennies and is looking for government handouts
city-by-city to reestablish.
This actually might be something that could be done
neighborhood by neighborhood - maybe NRP grant? Lease
a big pipe DSL line, set up a server & wi-fi transmit
site at neighborhood office. Sell subscriptions to
those in neighborhood that are interested, price to
pay for monthly DSL rental and equipment cost. Gets
a bit complicated with installation, maintenance, set
up, dealing with virus, naughty behavior, etc.
John McClellan
Keewaydin
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