Why is there no general discussion about streamlining City service via WiFi,
e.g.,
water and gas meter reading
traffic control
emergency service communications
Water, and gas meter reading IS now done "wirelessly." Conversion from manually read meters to remote reading meters became "mandatory" about 5 years ago (maybe longer ago, I've had mine for so long, I don't remember). I think the "upgrade" process has been completed throughout the city, but knowing the City, maybe not. PECO did the same.
This system is more functional and secure than any Wi-Fi implementation could possibly ever be for a variety of reasons.
Traffic control is a similar issue. Besides the idea that you can change all the red lights to green as you drive down the street, there are not a lot of benefits, if any. As has already been proven in a number of cities and towns which have installed "Emergency Vehicle responsive" traffic lights -- which do exactly that -- the system quickly gets hacked.
Since I've been playing with the Internet since when it was known as the ARPAnet, the idea that Emergency Services might use any portion of the "public" internet scares the living daylights out of me. (And this ignores the issues which the City's current Police/Fire radio system has.) There are certain services related to health and safety which MUST work all the time and without issue. While it is possible that if/when IPv6 is finally deployed that the Quality of Service (QOS) designators might contain such a capability. However, to work as it must, IPv6 must be the norm, not IPv4 tunneling IPv6 as is now the case. But even then, there are still significant issues with using the Internet for such communications.
There is one thing true about the Internet (and any Wi-Fi setup would be even worse)... it is NOT reliable. It may have three nines (99.9 percent) up time, but that means that it is GUARANTEED to be down .1 percent of the time, or 8 hours per year! While people have become accustomed to their Cell Phones not working, "land lines" (good ol' Ma Bell) do work on the order of seven nines, or 5 minutes a year of down-time. PLUS, they work when there is a power outage! (Our last power outage this past fall lasted almost nine hours, even though it was localized to about 40 houses on two blocks. Another outage earlier in the year lasted only about four hours, but it took out everything, including street lights and traffic lights, for about 8 blocks.)
Far better to spend the effort to get L&I and assorted other City "paperwork" operations "on-line." The "bang for the buck" is much, much higher.
T.T.F.N. William H. Magill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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