Oakland County, Michigan says their Wireless Oakland project (FAQ), allowing free access to basic Internet services for consumers in Oakland County. (pdf map) is “live”. A “pilot” demonstration took place this past Labor Day Weekend when wireless Internet connectivity was available within a square mile radius in downtown Pontiac.
MichTel Communications, a Pontiac-based communications company, is the private sector partner in the project and expects to finalize a partnership within the next 30 days.
Oakland County will not own or operate the wireless network. Instead, the County will create a public/private partnership(s) by providing private businesses access to the assets in which Oakland County taxpayers have already funded. In exchange, the partner(s) will be required to provide free wireless internet access to residents, businesses and visitors within Oakland County.
Free internet service will be offered at the lower bandwidth, but the private sector partners will charge fees for higher-end service.
It other muni news, Cook County, a suburban Chicago county, has tapped IBM Global Services to build a wireless government communications system that covers the County and all of its 128 municipalities. It could be the first county in the United States to go all wireless for its public safety communications, says Wireless Week.
The massive Wi-Fi-based public safety network will eventually cover all 940 square miles of the county. Initially 80 patrol cars will be outfitted with the wireless connections and video cameras. Cellular and Wi-Fi radios will supply the connections along with iDEN-based walkie-talkie radios. “Their desire was to be the first wireless county in the country, and I believe that is the case,” says Diana Hage, director of wireless services at IBM.
Calumet City, in Cook County, is using Cisco’s 4.9 GHz gear inside Cisco’s 3200 Mobile Wireless Routers (right), mounted in police cars. Calumet City plans to integrate 4.9GHz technology along side its existing 802.11b wireless network infrastructure.
Cook County will mount the Wi-Fi access points on 200-ft.-tall towers owned by the county. This height should provide a 3-mile range for the access points, according to officials. Backhaul from each access point would be provided by a countywide fiber-optic network.
Cook County has already equipped 80 police tactical squad vehicles with rugged computers hooked up to Cisco 3200 Series mobile routers. Cisco recently introduced metro-wide gear for such city clouds.
Portland-based Invictus Networks is said to be on the final negotiations for constructing a large public service network for Washington County (just west of Portland). The network, using BelAir’s meshed access points, would allow police and fire personel to transmit live video as well as provide maps, data and voice for firefighters in the field.
Eastern Oregon’s 700 square mile WiFi cloud recently appeared in Wired, USA Today, ABC and numerous newspapers.
EZ Wireless turned much of Umatilla and Morrow counties into a Wi-Fi cloud a couple of years ago. The 700 square mile cloud, encompassed four counties and seven cities for use by the Oregon Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program (CSEPP). A newly developed Incident Response Information System (IRIS) will deliver emergency management services to rugged handheld and laptop computers. Some 66 towers standing 75 to 150 feet tall provide coverage.
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