The solution to City-Wide WiFi?

David Lay · Post by **David Lay** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:00 am

In San Francisco, Meraki started by installing a handful of DSL lines in homes around the city. Then it called for volunteers, mostly by word of mouth, to host repeaters in their homes and on rooftops (outdoor repeaters are more powerful, thanks to longer antennae). Up to 100 repeaters are needed per square mile, depending on the density and height of nearby buildings. As many as 100 people can comfortably share a DSL line; Meraki calculates they're getting 1 megabyte per second on average. As with any network, speed drops as more people log on, but heavy traffic automatically reroutes to nearby, less-trafficked connections. Six months into the project, Meraki had installed upward of 750 repeaters, covering about 10% of San Francisco; they'll need at least 10,000 -- and many more DSL lines -- for the entire city. (If you're in the city and looking for a Wi-Fi signal, the network is called "Free the Net.")

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/124 ... -zone.html

Jim DeVito · Post by **Jim DeVito** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:09 am

Nice Thought. And no doubt it may even work well. Problem is the big telcos will never allow it. How are they planning to cash in? If there is one thing ma bell is afraid of it is change.

David Lay · Post by **David Lay** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:14 am

Jim DeVito wrote:Nice Thought. And no doubt it may even work well. Problem is the big telcos will never allow it. How are they planning to cash in? If there is one thing ma bell is afraid of it is change.

Some ISPs are changing their TOS to allow WiFi sharing. Time Warner Cable recently started to allow FON users to share their bandwidth:

http://tinyurl.com/2sxlyb

Speakeasy.net is also a supporter of the FON project.

Bryan Schwegler · Post by **Bryan Schwegler** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:23 am

Has Cox or AT&T changed their TOS yet?

David Lay · Post by **David Lay** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:24 am

I have no idea, though I would think that if some ISPs are doing so, eventually they will (hopefully) follow suit.

Bryan Schwegler · Post by **Bryan Schwegler** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:32 am

Yeah, I would hope so. I always thought FON was an interesting idea, I think there are even a few spots in Lakewood already.

David Lay · Post by **David Lay** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:34 am

There are a few FON spots around Lakewood. According to their website they have over 600,000 users worldwide. Some cities like Tokyo have very widespread FON usage.

Ryan Salo · Post by **Ryan Salo** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:37 pm

My thought on the topic has always been to have a provider like ATT or Cox provide the data. There are companies that can provide large cover areas of wi-fi - One company I talked to 2 years ago could cover Lakewood with 3 tower type dishes that don't require home antennaâ€™s.

Then we could have a Lakewood opening "splash" page where local/national businesses pay to advertise. It could possibly pay for the internet to be free to all residents and a small fee for non residents who work here.

David Lay · Post by **David Lay** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 12:46 pm

I agree Ryan, though it seems as if most of the large-scale WiFi projects have either been shut down or postponed indefinitely.

Chicago's has been suspended, Athens, GA's network was shut down in January. San Francisco's deal with Earthlink fell apart last year when Earthlink, all of a sudden, decided it wasn't financially feasible.

I really think it's going to be the smaller upstarts like Meraki and FON who will make large-scale WiFi access a reality. FON already has Tokyo 80% covered, thanks in part to FON-enabled Skype Phones/Access Points, and cheap La Foneras (the pocket-sized access points that make up the FON WiFi network).

Jim O'Bryan · Post by **Jim O'Bryan** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 1:15 pm

Jim DeVito wrote:Nice Thought. And no doubt it may even work well. Problem is the big telcos will never allow it. How are they planning to cash in? If there is one thing ma bell is afraid of it is change.

Maybe, just maybe the LO has another solution that comes from a project we are working on with East Cleveland.

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Jim DeVito · Post by **Jim DeVito** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:23 pm

Jim O'Bryan wrote:
Jim DeVito wrote:Nice Thought. And no doubt it may even work well. Problem is the big telcos will never allow it. How are they planning to cash in? If there is one thing ma bell is afraid of it is change.

Maybe, just maybe the LO has another solution that comes from a project we are working on with East Cleveland.

.

Sure Jim keep the good stuff to yourself.

Jim O'Bryan · Post by **Jim O'Bryan** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 2:28 pm

Jim DeVito wrote:Sure Jim keep the good stuff to yourself.

Jim

With just a little problem solving this should be an easy one to figure out.

Let's just say, I am not worried about this one.

FWIW

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