The City of New Orleans will give up its free city-provided wireless Internet network once EarthLink finishes building out its initial wireless system, says The Times-Picayune.
The wireless network that is run by the city for citizens will be taken down to avoid overlap between the two systems, said Mark Kurt, the city’s director of information technology.
“Once EarthLink has deployed their network, we will remove our equipment, and redeploy elsewhere as the situation warrants. The other wireless networks that have been set up by the city for temporary facilities and public safety will continue to be operated by the city as long as they are necessary and funding is available,” Kurt said.
EarthLink intends on providing wireless service to 20 square miles of the city by the end of the year. Having both the city and EarthLink systems running in the same spots might cause interference, said Clifton Roscoe, EarthLink general manager for New Orleans.
The free service will be provided as long as the city rebuilds, according to EarthLink. The company has said it hopes to profit from the deal by selling higher-speed wireless service to those who want it. It also plans to continue building out the system if there is demand for it outside the original 20 square miles.
The city’s small Wi-Fi network in the Central Business District and a portion of the French Quarter, which was started just after Hurricane Katrina, enabled businesses that no longer have offices to operate out of coffee shops, restaurants and bars in the days and months after the storm when there were few communications options available.
But, the city’s efforts were opposed by other Internet service providers who said the city was essentially taking business away from them.
The city tried to push through state legislation that would have allowed it to continue operating its system indefinitely, but those laws weren’t approved by the state Legislature.
The Earthlink network will use Tropos gear as well as deploy Motorola’s MOTOwi4 portfolio, including its Canopy high-speed backhaul and Wi-Fi mesh network equipment.
New Orleans had earlier installed a city-wide wireless video surveillance network using Tropos gear. City officials are using Sony’s SNC-RZ30N cameras as the “eyes” of the system, and backboning them with wireless and fiber. Sony’s IP cameras feature remote-controlled pan/tilt/zoom, a 25X optical zoom lens, day/night and wireless capabilities.
Related DailyWireless stories include; New Orleans Gets Free Cloud, New Orleans Gets Earthlink Cloud, BellSouth Expands WiMAX, and Katrina: 1 Year After.
.gif)
