Seven groups that include heavy weights like Cisco Systems, and IBM have responded to the RFP put out by Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force. The RFP is to build a giant wireless network that covers most of SIlicon Valley - from East Palo Alto to Santa Cruz. (More details in our previous report.) The most notable part of this news announcement is that Earthlink is not going to participate in this big build out.
- Azulstar, Cisco Systems, IBM, SeaKay (San Francisco)
- Blue Horizon Group (San Francisco, California)
- Community Wireless (Palo Alto, California)
- Fire 2 Wire / Ubiquity Broadband Communities (Carmel, California)
- MetroFi (Mountain View, California)
- Next WLAN Corp. (Los Gatos, California)
- VeriLan (Portland, Oregon)
These proposal will be reviewed, and a short list created, and will be announced by early September.
Update: WiFiNetNews has a complete analysis of the announcement, and it strips away the hype. Worth a read.
3 comments so far
5:39 PM PT
when are we going to see VPNs made available for secure wireless surfing. i still have a connection to a university but once they realize i graduated a few years ago the plug will be pulled…
7:24 PM PT
There’s already a 1.25 sq mile test area in Palo Alto (California Avenue on either side of El Camino Real) running with a WiFi mesh network from Firetide (sponsored by Intel and SAP). So this will be an additional 1 sq mile.
7:25 PM PT
Here’s some additional info on the project I mentioned in the previous post:
(link)