No big surprise here. The problem with the municipal networks that I saw was the cities that thought they were going to get all this infrastructure for free. I'm sorry but I don't think you can get enough ad revenue from any of these networks to support the real cost of building a system properly. In reality all of these cities should have learned from Verizon and their wi-fi deployment in New York City. Verizon was never able to build on every phone booth because they didn't all have power at them. They discovered after building what they could, that usage patterns emerged. People were only apt to use the hotspots in locations where they could conveniently fire up their computers. Municipal mesh networks should do the same. Deploy what I call "Hot Pods" only in areas that make sense. Residential neighborhoods make no sense in my opinion. There are many other options for broadband in those neighborhoods and with the trees typically in those areas, your node density per user ratio stinks (and your customer per node ratio does as well). That is what drives up the cost of building these networks. If a municipality wants ubiquitous coverage all over a city for their employees to use, then they should be paying a large portion of the cost of that network. You can't expect someone else to pay for it for you. Wireless is great but to compete in residential areas over a mesh on 802.11b/g is not a good business model. With things like FIOS and cable being able to deliver 3 to 10 times the bandwidth to a customer, mesh does not make sense and the consumer knows this. Wireless is good for mobility but most users do not need it everywhere all the time. No let me really climb up on my soapbox..... As far as free internet service for citizens, that makes about as much sense as free telephone, electricity and gas!!!! If they worry about their underprivileged neighborhoods not have equal opportunity access to the internet, have them stand around their local library where they already offer this. Unless there are lines a mile long at the computers, I doubt there is that much of a pent up need. These same people can somehow find a way to pay $5 a pack for cigarettes, I don't think $35 a month or less for broadband service that they can then use to reduce other cost like phone bills will make a difference. Broadband internet is an essential infrastructure for a community. That is true. Providing it for free can not be done unless the municipality is going to foot the bill. All WISP's know it takes money to deliver bandwidth. Many of these mesh projects were led down the Primrose path by their internal IT geeks who thought a muni mesh network was as simple as throwing up a bunch of meraki nodes or flashing some linksys routers with open source tools. Those Utopian idealists forget to think about who then bears the cost of delivering the rest of the commercial internet to their love and hug fest........ <off soap box....lol> Don't get me wrong, I was the Chief Engineer for EarthLink on the Philly project. I like the idea of municipal mesh and I know they can work. I just think many municipalities and some commercial companies needs a reality check on what it takes in cost to build one. Then they need to examine what it takes to make a profitable business model from one. Eventually these networks will be working well and with devices like the IPhone, cellular carriers will welcome them to offload some of their traffic (roaming revenue?). Their networks certainly won't be able to shoulder the bandwidth demand of all the kids watching TV on their phones. Muni mesh networks will be able to absorb a lot of that demand. It's just time the politicians realized it costs some long term money to develop this....... I could go on for hours but I'm know I'm just preaching to the choir on this topic. It's Monday, guess I needed to vent... :-)
Thank You, Brian Webster -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jack Unger Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2008 8:45 PM To: WISPA General List Subject: [WISPA] MetroFi - Portland - Uh oh http://wifinetnews.com/archives/008158.html -- Jack Unger - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. Serving the Broadband Wireless Industry Since 1993 FCC License # PG-12-25133 Author of the Cisco Press Book - "Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs" Vendor-Neutral Wireless Training-Troubleshooting-Consulting Phone 818-227-4220 Email <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/