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]>
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