Comments on: Muni Wi-Fi: Dead in the Water?

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:28:17 +0000

Check out Bristol’s wiredness
http://www.wi-map.co.uk/

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:25:32 +0000

Yep Bristol is pretty wired up. We’ve just been out having an over-priced coffee, but it’s worth it for the wifi :) Proper 21st century wireless working!

By: Charles C Stirk Jr

Charles C Stirk Jr — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:51:22 +0000

So many cities towns have de facto wifi with the vast number of unsecured networks in denser areas

Philadelphia is a good example of this scanning for wireless network normally yield at least dozens of wifi networks if not more in much of the city

Even this coverage expanding as the 802.11n standard is adopted with longer ranges & speeds

Philadelphia is a good example of how not to do Muni Wi-Fi , Earthlink’s lock in subscription model , total lack of coverage , low band width beyond lack luster customer serves , & double billing etc.

While Muni Wi-Fi seems to be doable Earthlink seems to be the all to common denominator in so many of the failures

I really feel the real way forward is a mix of the grass roots & wifi provided via the brick & mortar businesses in denser areas

By: bc

bc — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:12:39 +0000

I’m another subscriber to Minneapolis WiFi, and I’m pretty satisfied with the service. It is fast enough to view video like Miro, it gives us multiple connections, and we can connect our Wii as well. It might not be as fast as cable, but it beats out DSL. And I’m happy to have an alternative to either Comcast or Qwest.
Minneapolis is using a different business model to get WiFi coverage across nearly 60 square miles of the city. The project is not done, but so far so good.

By: urbanmike

urbanmike — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:59:48 +0000

The sad thing is that many small communities, not wanting to be left out in the technological cold latched onto the idea of muni wifi, only to find that it wasn’t such a great deal.

The small town/city we live in (Castlegar, BC) burned a bunch of cash trying to get one set up, some would say, another broken electoral promise, I’d say smart choice for not going through with it.

By: Jacob

Jacob — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 17:52:57 +0000

The government was going to put one of their biggest taxpayers out of business. Um?

Telcos most likely did their best to stop it, even if it meant going by slightly less legal means. Time Warner makes gazillions of dollars from Road Runner; are they really going to let all that go away when they have the capability to stop it?

By: Rajeev

Rajeev — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 13:07:34 +0000

People should know how to get their work done.

There lies the crux of the matter.

http://tekno-world.blogspot.com

By: fresnellens

fresnellens — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:48:18 +0000

Muni is not about meeting my needs. I can afford broadband in the home. I live in Jersey City and many if not most of the residents here cannot afford the cable/telco cabal that charges close to monopoly rents, without real competition. Price competition was, to me, the real benefit of muni wireless. Sufficient bandwidth is available in many places, but without broad coverage, with reliable security, many will not be able to enjoy the fruits of the web.

Tom

By: John Bradford

John Bradford — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 10:35:54 +0000

Hey guys,

Pop over to Bristol (UK) – we’ve got free wifi courtesy of Streetnet and the city council. Plus loads of places have free wifi on tap in coffee shops, bars, etc.

John

By: ben

ben — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 04:37:06 +0000

All the places I’ve lived since ’99 are inching toward community-financed muni WiFi, which IMO will get one by in a pinch.

…But coffeehouses and the like are only marginally better. Get too many people trying to use too weak a signal, and a true Web Worker will be dead in the water (the statelessness of HTTP notwithstanding).

To hell with throughput, I’d rather have a slow connection that won’t time out.

By: Stephen M (Ethesis)

Stephen M (Ethesis) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:51:48 +0000

Mike,

This is Steve Marsh from the D&D/planes of reality days. I was trying to catch up with you in the hopes I could get whatever papers you still had that I had sent you.

I’d also note that I use the free wireless in County buildings in my home town.

Interesting to think of meeting all my on-line needs from nomad hot spots.

Anyway, drop me a line if you get the chance, thanks!

Steve Marsh

By: justin

justin — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:30:18 +0000

I use the Minneapolis Wifi as my primary and only home internet connection. It’s not great, but it’s not comcast or qwest.

Despite my love of Muni Wifi, I would have to agree that Wifi is ill-suited for blanket coverage that is needed for a system like this to work.

Maybe someday WiMax will be here…