Cities should not be building WiFi networks.
They don't need to. There are plenty of people willing to supply the capability. WiFi is a local networking technology, not a wide-area networking technology.
Instead, cities should be building WiMax (802.16) networks.
The big problem for 802.11 remains backhaul. If Bells control backhaul, they determine the price of Internet service. We found this in the CLEC business. This monopoly must be broken.
WiMax can do that.
A city can provide WiMax links between police stations, schools, and other municipally-owned locations and competitive fiber nodes. This saves money for the city by providing an alternate route for its backhaul. Cities can tap into this backhaul, via WiFi, and provide a host of public safety services, from cameras on crime-ridden public streets and in parks to red light cameras on busy corners.
The excess capacity can then be sold, at a reasonable price, to any WiFi operator who wants to pay for it. The money earned in this way helps pay the city's upfront cost. The city's own Internet connectivity then becomes essentially free.
And anyone with a WiFi hotspot gets the cheap backhaul they need to make either a free or paid model work.
Intel is pushing WiMax hard. They would love to get involved in projects like this.
The Bells and cable operators will fight it like they've fought nothing before. Hopefully they will over-reach, their greed will become obvious to voters, and any legislator who tries to prevent cities from going to WiMax will be collecting unemployment after the next election.
Not so sure Intel would love to be involved in this. For their WiMax vision to succeed it needs to be a last mile technology (3/4G contendor) not a backhaul technology. I don't think they would want to be publically involved in anything that categorized it as such.
Permalink to CommentI can't believe government people are so blind. Wireless communication could completely change the lifestyle in big cities, and the don't give a rat's ass. Why?
We wouldn't need money or change, I could purchase something with a fingerprint reader. Or call the nearest cab with the push of a button. Or report a crime using my citizencam connected to the police network. The possibilities are endless. And all we need is the infrastructure, that would in the end benefit the city as a whole (as do electricity and water).
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if electricity was discovered just now. Quite probably people would argua that it would not be feasible to roll cables to every house, and that the benefit wouldn't be that much better than fuel driven ilumination. This what I fear is happening with wireless communication: people just can't envision what it would be good for...