Novarum has been testing wireless broadband networks in North America. They test the performance and service availability of Metro Wi-Fi and cellular networks and create an overall rating that also includes ease of use and value.
Eight of the top ten rated networks are cellular networks. Cellular data services are more mature than Metro Wi-Fi services, says Novarum, and they are easy to use and generally offer better service availability than Wi-Fi metro networks.
Novarum says the only Metro Wi-Fi network they have tested with 100% service availability is the CyberSpot network in St. Cloud Florida, which is also the highest rated network overall. Metro Wi-Fi networks typically are higher performance than cellular data networks.
Metro Wi-Fi services have four of the top five spots in the performance rankings. The top performing network by a wide margin is OneZone by Toronto Hydro Telecom. It is a commmercial service that covers the downtown core of Toronto. The test covered 41 wireless networks in 14 cities across North America.
Covering six square kilometers, Toronto’s One Zone (blog) is the largest Wi-Fi zone in Canada. The deployment was completed on schedule, on December 31, 2006, and will launch commercially on March 7, 2007. It’s powered by Siemens Mesh@vantage MR product family, using mesh technology from BelAir Networks. Siemens sells BelAir products under the Siemens brand and has teamed on both WiMAX mesh deployments and cellular backhaul.
It consistently delivered Internet upload and download rates of 5 Mbps, besting other cities such as Philadelphia and Mountain View, CA. The testing was conducted in mid-December. Novarum says it’s an independent consulting firm offering broadband analysis and testing services.
Novarum managing directors are Phil Belanger and Ken Biba, pals from Vivato and more recently from BelAir.
[...] Muni Wi-Fi can deliver speed, coverage if properly designed, says Novarum. [...]
Left by dailywireless.org » MuniFi Client Solution? on January 24th, 2007