Would have been a better choice
It seems odd now that the reasons couldn’t have been foreseen.
What’s Behind the Epidemic of Municipal Wi-Fi Failures?
The dream of wireless networks bathing U.S. cities in free and pervasive internet access has come to an end, at least for now. As the number of failed or stalled municipal wireless projects continues to rise, the focus has shifted from closing the so-called digital divide to why plans for such networks, in only a year’s time, seem to be dissolving almost daily.
Last week, San Francisco, Chicago and St. Louis all announced significant and perhaps fatal roadblocks in their municipal Wi-Fi projects.
“Frankly, I’m not surprised at all,” said Dewayne Hendricks of Tetherless Access, a provider of metropolitan wireless-networking services. “It’s been clear this was going to happen for a while now.”
It’s a harsh dose of reality that juxtaposes the giddy enthusiasm for ubiquitous Wi-Fi that cities like San Francisco, Philadelphia, Houston and many others displayed only a few years ago. In part, that enthusiasm was based on a handful of assumptions. The first was that advertising could support citywide connectivity, enabling the services to be free or low-cost. Many proponents also argued that residents would actually want to use the free networks. Both assumptions were mistaken.
When companies like MetroFi and Earthlink started bidding for contracts in 2004, they often agreed to some spectacularly generous terms. For instance, many telecoms acquiesced to footing the entire bill for network build-out, maintenance and upgrades. […] Then, there was the issue of radio transmitters needed to broadcast the signal. With a range of just 100 or 200 feet at most, Wi-Fi networks simply don’t provide adequate access — especially for people in buildings or other enclosed areas.
I thought that at first, City X wanted to freely distribute Wi-Fi.
Then the providers promised to sue.
Then City X gets the providers to supply the free Wi-Fi, now they say there’s no profit.
In any case, the technology still isn’t mature for a mesh, and when you setup three or more routers with boosted antennas close to each other, you get other problems.
City X Y Z should simply Wi-Fi enable public parks, beaches, not the entire downtown core and surroundings. Pick & Choose.
From my personal experience with DevTeach 2002 to 2007, with or without the larger 7db antennas, the biggest problem is Windows XP.
XP is designed to automatically switch to the strongest signal when it is in range. However that means obtaining a new IP address, which causes a delay, and of course will cut persistent connections, like file transfers & email.
What I noticed is that we had to tell everyone to NOT let Windows XP manage the wireless. Then each person had to choose which router name to connect to manually.
A pain when moving around, but better than having XP change router every minute back & forth when midway between two boosted routers.
Red Moon sold the same bill of wi-fi goods to Addison TX (suburb of DFW), with an official residency population of about 15,000, but a daytime population of 200,000.
They couldn’t make it work over 4.5 sq. miles. Good luck trying to make it work in San Francisco or Houston!
http://www.muniwireless.com/article/articleview/4819
we never had free phones, why should we expect free wi-fi?
“we never had free phones, why should we expect free wi-fi?”
– it was never really going to be free. It would as “free” as the free garbage collection, police, & file department services that the city provides. In other words, it would be added onto city property taxes.
“On the XP only looks for the strongest signal, you can fix that on the wireless properties. That’s what “preferred networks” properties is all about. Otherwise, it will behave as you described.”
– Does anyone know how to set XP so that it will only connect to the preferred network, and prevent the user from connecting to any other signal? In my office building, there are at least 5 wireless signals. Sometimes my office signal seems to get “bumped” by another signal. Then the idiot users in my office try to re-connect using any of the unsecured signals floating around.
Why did municipal WiFi fail? Because WiFi sucks.
It is very expensive to roll out a solution that is low-cost to residents.
I’m waiting for WiMax. And waiting. And waiting….
At this rate, BPL will be out first. And that hinges on Congress or State Legislatures to offer “protection” to power companies. Hey, good luck on that ever happening in my lifetime.
in philly, the city govn’t decided to go city-wide wifi because the private sector never delivered on their promises to deliver broadband to low-income neighborhoods — comcast and verizon had their chance and they blew it
the private sector is profit-driven, and so for the good of the whole city, philly took matters into their own hands — kudos to the liberals of the world who want to go forward as one, not every man for himself.
and btw, philly is still on schedule for 100% coverage by 12/31/07
p.s. earthlink is gonna make good cheese picking up where comcast and verizon failed.
There’s free WiFi in Bryant Park in the center of Manhattan midtown, BTW.
http://www.bryantpark.org/amenities/wireless.php
The only reason municipal WiFi is on the ropes is because too many people want a piece of the billing.
In some places, the cops jammed on the brakes before municipal wifi could even get properly planned. They were worried people would be able to access the Internet anonymously and do illegal things. As you might imagine, the first freak-out was: “But what about the children?”.
The cops figured municipal wifi would make pedophiles invisible. End of story.
#11 – What is sad about your comment is that, as you and I both know, a savvy user can be invisible anyway. So if police protests stopped wifi in a given area it was just paranoia and not any legitimate concern.
That said, it seems that law enforcement is always happy to stand in the way on any technology if they perceive a possibility that a private citizen might be able to abuse it… whether there is evidence that they would or not. But no one seems to want to block technologies that corporations or government agencies can and do frequently abuse, thus we get hammered with threats of identity theft, loss of privacy, and spam (to name a few).
So to hell with free wifi… all that would do is be a good service to many citizens, and what good is that?
#12 – OFTLO
Sometimes what the police don’t know can be terrifying. Most of them have no technical knowledge at all, totally believe in fairy tales about hackers and worst of all, many of them have no sense of humor whatsoever.
I know the vast majority of them mean well but this wifi paranoia is just another example of power in the hands of the ignorant and frightened. It’s too bad but it seems that’s the way the world works these days.
Pedro, that doesn’t account for networks that show up later. There should be a default do not connect option for the wireless. Then after the machine is on, the user decides what to connect to. Then on reboot, it still doesn’t conenct unless the user says so.
#14 – Cinaedh
Well, ignorance is everywhere. That’s why the tubes get all clogged up with junk from eBay and pirates, and the Internet that Senator Steven’s staff sent on Saturday doesn’t arrive till Tuesday. 🙂
We need a new piece of software to clear the tubes.
How about Internet Exlax.
I hate to admit it but Pedro actually has the answer in comment #3
Screw corporate/municipal wifi. go p2p mesh.
The politicians screwed up. They haven’t the education or experience to pull off a public works project anymore. You pass a bond issue to pay for building the network. And tax the use of Wifi cards that connect to the “free service”. Something like how the UK built and pays for their Television network. Rather than wait for private industry to get around to building transmitters and studios. The government stepped in a funding it. And then collected a tax, per Tv set, for its use. Seems to work for the brits. Why can’t that work for us and Wifi. Also, the nations highways system wasn’t built by commercial industry. It was a public works project too. And gas taxes pay for their upkeep. So the Information Super Highway needs another public works project to get everyone connected with the need for stringing more wire, owned by the Telecoms.
2-20 mile range…
http://aircable.net/host-xr.html
THINK about it… you could cover your WHOLE neighborhood… It has 7 ports IN/OUT..
But Iv asked the company, WHY they use USB insted of firewire…They havent answered..