Municipal Wi-Fi press exceeds deployment
I just wrote a municipal Wi-Fi column for the next print issue of EDN about issues with planned deployments. A number of experts are suddenly questioning the validity of the concept, although most question the technical difficulties and cost. I think the real issue is that there is no one to pay for the service. I went looking for some more input on the topic and here are a bunch of quick links that you might find interesting.
Here’s a breakdown of how municipal Wi-Fi works from the How Stuff Works web site.
Here’s a blog devoted to public broadband.
Here’s a story on municipal Wi-Fi success stories in small communities.
Here’s another bleak outlook story from The Economist.
Here’s an index to a large set of articles on eWeek.
I suppose the one final thought that I have centers again on the value proposition. How did a company like Earthlink believe that financially strapped large cities were going to fund these massive deployments? Here’s a link to the recent Earthlink restructuring announcement. The announcement didn’t call out municipal Wi-Fi as the culprit but read where the staff reductions are concentrated and the message is clear. And despite all of the bad news, I’d suspect some small tows and cities to still do quite well with municipal Wi-Fi.
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