Municipal wifi failure

There are even some who get their data delivered over the air via proprietary wireless networks. A wireless router costs money. The cabling to that router costs money. The data access to that router costs money. The electricity needed to run it costs money. Installing it costs money. Maintaining it costs money. The other side of the argument is that access is free, not the costs behind it.

Whether you use it or not. Whether you buy your own or not. Sometimes even editors at Pocketnow park at such places to bring high-quality news, articles, and editorials to you, our readers. Again, the costs have to be covered somehow. Most of the businesses around me that offer WiFi to their customers all suffer from a few issues. First, they typically put you behind a web-based portal through which you must agree to terms and conditions of acceptable use.

Next is performance. When I go to lunch to escape the monotony that is the life of being a Webmaster my other job , I often like to open up Netflix and catch an episode of Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe , or re-runs of Firefly. Most of the time the experience is lacking. Shows stutter and buffer. Running Speedtest. How slow? I live in Northern Utah. But Hendricks isn't ready to give up on the general public just yet, and says the public Wi-Fi story is far from over. The first time around, projects don't go so well.

Then you try again. In fact, Hendricks characterizes the recent downturn in muni Wi-Fi projects simply as "the end of the first beginning. The second beginning, he says, may already be underway with the IEEE's work on Mesh-networking systems are designed to be self-configuring, allowing wireless nodes to find one another and create links automatically or with very little user intervention. Recent reports from market-analysis company In-Stat show that the Wi-Fi mesh-networking equipment market had more than percent growth in , and will have more than 90 percent growth in Hendricks says technologies like WiMax, which offers longer range and higher bandwidth than Wi-Fi, may also prove to be a particularly appealing model for cities.

Companies like Sprint and Clearwire have already stated they will begin investing billions of dollars for major WiMax build-outs in metropolitan areas like New York in the coming year.

And if the larger, more ambitious municipal networks prove infeasible? Sadly, populist ideals like universal access to the Internet and non-profit operation tend to have the opposite affect of its intention. Government-owned broadband networks almost always operate at a loss, see more service interruptions, and generally have fewer satisfied customers than their private counterparts.

Recent legislation that forces governments to compete on even footing with private enterprise will force the majority of municipally run networks to fold, leaving room for private enterprise to re-enter the market and provide reliable and cheaper service for consumers, and not saddle taxpayers with an overwhelming debt. The promise of municipal WiFi and failed policies of inclusion: The disability divide.

Burton Blatt Institute. Overview Fingerprint. Abstract Wireless technologies, especially those deployed by municipalities, have been offered as one way to enhance access to society at large, including people with disabilities and others on the wrong side of the digital divide.

Keywords Disability divide accessibility compliance municipal wireless muni WiFi policy. Access to Document Link to publication in Scopus.