“Sometimes when I’m driving on the road at night, I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The flames rising out of the flowing gasoline”. — Annie Hall
Just south of Seattle, the Pierce County Wi-Fi network – at roughly 1,500 square miles – may rank among the largest in the country, reports the News Tribune. The Rainier Communications Commission, a countywide consortium of municipalities, voted last week to give the contract to CenturyTel to provide WiFi service to Pierce County’s 754,000 residents.
The commission selected CenturyTel’s Wi-Fi initiative from 10 concepts submitted earlier this year said commission Executive Director Bill Oltman (RFP).
CenturyTel will build the Wi-Fi quilt at its own expense. The company will install canister-style antennas manufactured by SkyPilot, the same gear being used in Portland’s WiFi cloud being built by MetroFi.
The company will install roughly 25 antennas per square mile – varying based on terrain and building density. It features:
- Free basic public access to the network for a limited time each day, suitable for Web browsing and e-mail uses that don’t require huge amounts of broadband capacity.
- Premium access, for a subscription fee, to higher levels of broadband access for Web video viewing, data transfer and Internet phone services. Although CenturyTel hasn’t established package details and pricing, consumers likely will choose from several broadband speed options depending on their Internet needs.
- Commercial packages, for subscription fees, that allow businesses to buy high-capacity broadband Internet access.
- Unique and secure access for municipal and school applications.
- Free access for law enforcement and emergency services agencies countywide to communicate with each other in voice or with data on a frequency dedicated nationally to public safety.
- A wholesale access plan so third-party Internet Service Providers, such as Harbornet or Net-Venture, can sell wireless access to their customers on the CenturyTel network.
Other large municipal WiFi networks include the Columbia Rural Electric Network in southwest Washington, covering some 3,700 square miles with Vivatos (above). Others include Fred Ziari’s 700 Mile Cloud in Eastern Oregon, The Wireless Silicon Valley Cloud, spanning 42 municipalities and nearly 1,500 square miles, serving some 2.4 million people, and the Sacramento Regional Cloud that will cover nine counties over 12,000-square-miles, with a combined population of about 3 million, including the city of Sacramento (pop: 450,000).
The Pierce County wireless network may or may not get into some communities – like Lakewood, Gig Harbor and Buckley, for example – that don’t belong to the Rainier Communications Commission.
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What’s Wrong with WiMAX? People, people, people — can’t we wait for Mobile WiMAX to do these huge networks? Sure the licensed 2.5 GHz bands would be best, but FCC commissioner Martin won’t be torpedoing a robust broadband policy for the United States, forever. Besides, unlicensed 700 MHz bands may be available in a few years. Licensed WiMAX by Sprint and Clearwire costs less to deploy and covers more. Fast wireless roaming might cost $30-$40 month. Who’ll want spotty WiFi service or expensive cellular data? Huge WiFi networks, like the one planned by Pierce County, seem risky. Do the numbers. It doesn’t add up. WiMAX isn’t a panacea, but it will be here – in a short 18 months. Plan on it. Then backhaul free (802.11n) hotspots with WiMAX. |
After that it got pretty late, and we both had to go, but it was great seeing Annie again. I realized what a terrific person she was and how much fun it was just knowing her; and I thought of that old joke, y’know, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, my brother’s crazy; he thinks he’s a chicken.” And the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn him in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.”
[...] Just south of Seattle, the Pierce County Wi-Fi network – at roughly 1,500 square miles – may rank among the largest in the country. The Rainier Communications Commission, a countywide consortium of municipalities, voted to give a contract to CenturyTel to provide WiFi service to Pierce County’s 754,000 residents. [...]
Left by dailywireless.org » State-wide Wireless Broadband Access on January 5th, 2007