On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 10:37 AM, Michael Weinberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I would love to first contact neighborhood associations and see if > folks who live in a given neighborhood would take it on themselves to > support a network. That is really what PTP's original inspiration was. > My guess is that it would be of greater value to PTP's mission and > would make the city feel even better. That's not to say that we can't > also cover commercial areas, and those like Alberta and NE 28th, > Hawthorne, Belmont, etc. that are closely tied to residential areas > and have heavy pedestrian traffic make perfect sense to tie into > neighborhood wide access. It's a hard sell for me. I had a skypilot within sight of my house (1 block away) and could not connect in my house at all. Outside was possible in certain areas. I purchased the indoor ruckus device and still didn't have decent coverage. My coffee shop had an Metrofi AP out front and it usually worked. While I know others had a different experience, I did come away with a negative opinion of shared residential wifi use with a broad coverage goal. When you examine how people use the internet at home they have much higher expectation of service then when they visit a wifi cloud in a public area. I think it would be hard to approach a community with the goal of in home wifi using skyPilots. It's the same song and dance but with a new seal of "We can do it". When you study the network requirements for residential coverage and the # of users who benefit, I don't think wifi mesh is the best option for our level dwelling density. Instead put it in a place where people are mobile. Where they are surprised and happy with any connection, even if their latest multiplayer video game or skype call isn't of the highest quality. If every block needs an AP and a dsl line, it's hard for me to see the benefit. But a retail area that has on average 1,000's of visitors per week is interesting. Now we are encouraging internet addicted people to leave the house and visit their local economic center. Lastly: How will the press look for city hall? If the project goes from citywide to a couple of neighborhoods, I see it looking like an issue of playing favorites, digital divide, or what about us?. If you target a different user type (i.e. pushing people to their local businesses) then city hall has a good story to tell with the limited resources that this opportunity affords. I think it could go either way (residential or commercial), but it does require willing partners and most likely that would define the project. Who is the willing partner? Joe --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ The Personal Telco Project - http://www.personaltelco.net/ Donate to PTP: http://www.personaltelco.net/donate Archives: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.network.wireless.portland.general/ Etiquette: http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/MailingListEtiquette List information: http://lists.personaltelco.net To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
