Municipal wireless network

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Municipal wireless network (Municipal Wi-Fi, Muni Wi-Fi or Muni-Fi) is the concept of turning an entire city into a Wireless Access Zone (WAZ), with the ultimate goal of making wireless access to the Internet a universal service. This is usually done by providing municipal broadband via Wi-Fi to large parts or all of a municipal area by deploying a wireless mesh network. The typical deployment design uses hundreds of routers deployed outdoors, often on utility poles. The operator of the network acts as a wireless internet service provider.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Finance 3 Cities with Municipal Wi-Fi 3.1 Existing 3.2 Planned 4 References

[edit] Overview

Such networks go far beyond the existing piggybacking opportunities available near public libraries and some coffee shops. The basic premise of carpeting an area with wireless service in urban centers is that it is more economical to the community to provide the service as a utility rather than to have individual households and businesses pay private firms for such a service. Such networks are viewed as capable of enhancing city management and public safety, especially when used directly by city employees out in the field. They can also be viewed as a social service to those who cannot afford private high-speed services such as DSL. When the network service is free and a small number of clients consume a majority of the available capacity, operating and regulating the network might prove difficult.^[1][2]

The Federal Trade Commission has expressed some concerns about such private/public partnerships as trending towards a franchise monopoly.^[3]

Technology continues to advance. In 2007, companies with existing cell sites offered competing paid high-speed wireless services where the laptop owner purchased a PC card or adapter which uses communications based on EV-DO cellular data receivers or WiMAX rather than 802.11b/g. High-end laptops in 2007 feature built-in support for these newer protocols. The next generation of Intel Centrino will support dual Wi-Fi and WiMAX. WiMAX is designed to implement a metropolitan area network (MAN) while 802.11 is designed to implement a wireless local area network (LAN).

The USA continues to be laissez-faire on technology and innovation. For the USA, providing a municipal wireless network is not officially recognized as a priority. There is no national program, plan or deployment model. The economies of an essentially socialist approach to providing a default level of access are easy to recognize, much as with cable television, but success in deployment effort in the USA are uneven largely due to regulatory and cost-sharing issues, with results akin to the shotgun sequencing of genomes.^[4][5][6][7]

[edit] Finance

The construction of such networks is a significant part of their lifetime costs. Usually, a private firm works closely with local government to construct such a network and operate it. Financing is usually shared by both the private firm and the municipal government. Once operational, the service may be free, supported by advertising, provided for a monthly charge per user or some combination. Among deployed networks, usage as measured by number of distinct users has been shown to be moderate to light. Private firms serving multiple cities sometimes maintain a single account for each user thus allowing the user a limited amount of portable service as they travel among the cities covered by the firm. As of 2007, some Muni WiFi deployments are delayed as the private and public partners involved in planned networks continue to negotiate the business model and financing.^{[8][9][10][11][12][13]}

In the build-out of such networks, radio communication is used both for the Wi-Fi service and for the "backhaul" or pathway to the Internet. This means that the nodes only need a wire for power (hence the habit of installing them on power and light utility poles). This "all radio" approach means that nodes must be within range of each other and form a contiguous pathway back to special aggregation nodes that has more traditional access to the Internet. Nodes then relay traffic, somewhat like a fire-bucket brigade, from the laptop to the aggregation node. This limits the way in which the network can be grown incrementally: coverage starts near the aggregation point and, as the mesh grows, new coverage can only grow out from the edge of the mesh. If a new, isolated area is to be covered, then a new aggregation point must be constructed. Private firms often take a phased approach, starting with one or a few sectors of a city to demonstrate competence before making the larger investment of attempting full coverage of a city.

Google WiFi is entirely funded by Google. Some other projects that are still in the planning stages have pared back their planned coverage from 100% of a municipal area to only densely commercially zoned areas. One of the most ambitious planned projects is to provide wireless service throughout Silicon Valley, but the winner of the bid seems ready to request that the 40 cities involved help cover more of the cost which has raised concerns that the project will ultimately be too slow-to-market to be deemed a success. Advances in technology in 2005-2007 may allow wireless community network projects to offer a viable alternative. Such projects have to advantage that they and they do not have to negotiate with government entities they have no contractual obligations for coverage. A promising example is Meraki's demonstration in San Francisco, which already claims 20,000 distinct users as of October 2007.^{[14][15][16][17][18][19][20]}

[edit] Cities with Municipal Wi-Fi

[edit] Existing

• Auckland, New Zealand - free/paid, central business district, RoamAD^[21]
• Balanga City, Bataan, Philippines - free, limited to downtown and several tourist attractions only^[22]
• Bologna Italy - free, historical city center (phase 1), Acantho^[23]
• Boston, Massachusetts & Brookline, Massachusetts - paid, Galaxy Internet Services
• Bristol, UK - free, 3km area around city centre ^[24]
• Chandler, Arizona - paid service, Kite Networks^[25]
• Clearwater Beach, Florida - free service, ^[26]
• Corpus Christi, Texas - paid service, Earthlink^[27]
• Fredericton, Canada - free, Fred-e Zone^[28]
• Greater Noida, Noida, India -- Paid, operated by Maksat Technologies (P) Ltd, Local ISP.
• Hong Kong - free service ^[29]
• Honolulu, Hawaii - free, Tri-Net Solutions LLC ^[30]
• Kennesaw, Georgia - free, City of Kennesaw WiFi - available in city parks and other areas [2]
• Leiden, The Netherlands - free, community project covering city and region Wireless Leiden
• Luxor, Egypt - pilot, paid service - tourist areas, TE Data ^[31]
• Luxembourg, Luxembourg -- Free, currently covering downtown and Central Station Hotcity
• Madison, Wisconsin - paid, only covers central part of city.
• Minneapolis, Minnesota - paid, USI Wireless^[32]
• Moscow, Russia - paid service, Golden Telecom^[33]
• Mountain View, California - free - Google WiFi
• Norwich, England - free, city center and university, 18-month pilot Openlink (Norwich,UK)
• Oulu, Finland - free - panOULU
• Pacifica, California - paid service, PacificaNet^[34]
• Paris, France-free-
• Perth, Australia - paid, RoamAD-based metro wide coverage in the CBD by metromesh
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - paid service, Earthlink^[35], will discontinue service on June 12, 2008.
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - free downtown 2 hours per day
• Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt - pilot, paid service, tourist areas, EgyNet^[31]
• Singapore, Singapore - free/paid, Wireless@SG
• Taipei, Taiwan - paid service 'Wifly' by Q-Ware Communications, Inc.^[36]
• Taupo, New Zealand, paid/free large RoamAD-based zone in tourist area by Kordia Metro WiFi
• Toronto - paid service from Toronto Hydro's One Zone. Free service is provided by Wireless Toronto
• Tempe, Arizona - paid service, Kite Networks^[37]
• Winston-Salem, North Carolina - free, limited to downtown. City-operated: no technical support.^[38]
• MetroFi - free with advertisements, deployed to 10 cities in the western USA
• Shawinigan, Quebec - free service, limited to downtown. City-operated.
• Southaven, Mississippi - paid service, city-operated, branded as Magnoliawave
• Sud Mennucci, Brazil -- free, limited to downtown. City-operated.

[edit] Planned

• Belo Horizonte, Brazil^[39]
• Mexico City, Mexico ^[40][41] free, coupled with new surveillance system (planned 2008)
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin^[42] - paid service, Midwest Fiber Networks, target date: March 2008
• Waukesha, Wisconsin^[43]
• Oakland County, Michigan - free 128K/bps, paid for high speed, Wireless Oakland
• San Francisco Municipal Wireless - canceled
• Silicon Valley Joint Venture Wireless Project - free, prototyped for Palo Alto and San Carlos by 2008, Silicon Valley Metro Connect.^[44]

[edit] References