New York WiFi

New York’s 750 sq mile Cloud

Posted by samc on August 16th, 2007

A $150 million plan covering 750 square miles and nearly three million residents in Long Island, took a major step forward on Wednesday when Long Island officials chose a company for the project, reports the NY Times.

Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy (right), who originated the concept, was joined by the Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, in announcing the selection of e-Path Communications of Tampa, Fla., to build, own and operate the system.

The project would be bigger than any other municipal system in the country to date, though some systems still being proposed elsewhere would be comparable or larger.

The project in Nassau and Suffolk is considered unusual because it would cover an area that is entirely suburban and does not have one central city.

The Wi-Fi Long Island system is intended for a wide range of users: residents, businesses, government agencies, schools, organizations and tourists.

It would provide free basic connections for any computer or hand-held Internet device at numerous “hot spots,” including public beaches, major parks, ferries and airports.

Limited home service would be free for residents below the federal poverty line, using a device to relay data indoors. That program would help erase the “digital divide” between the haves and have-nots, Mr. Levy said.

Other residents could subscribe to home service with more capacity, for things like music and picture downloads, for $25 a month, Mr. Levy said. An even higher level of service offering streaming video would be available for $55 a month.

A team of e-Path Communications, KeySpan Communications and Cisco, will build, own and operate the network to provide residents, businesses, municipal governments and visitors ubiquitous service throughout Long Island. The project will start later this year with two locations and is expected to take three years to build out.

Advertising, it is hoped, will fund the “free” service. Metrofi, which is building the 134 square mile Portland, Oregon, network, is combining a “free”, tier (with banner ads), with a $20/month subscription service (no ads), a point-to-point wireless service for businesses and an “anchor tenant” revenue stream from the city of Portland (now a requirement from MetroFi).

That company bid on the Long Island project, but company president Chuck Haas said lack of upfront money makes the business model unsustainable.

Several huge regional broadband wireless networks have been built or are planned, including:

• Houston signed up with Earthlink this July to build a citywide, 640-square-mile WiFi cloud. Houston’s 600 square mile city cloud should be the largest city-wide municipal wireless cloud in the United States.
• The 700 square mile cloud, built by EZ Wireless several years ago in Eastern Oregon, covers four counties and seven cities.
• A 720-square-mile Wi-Fi zone in Michigan is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Wireless Washtenaw will mixing and matching of 802.11b/g in urban Ann Arbor and 802.11a in the 600-square-mile rural area of Washtenaw County.
• Wireless Silicon Valley in California, gathers 41 cities together to deploy a wireless network that will cover nine counties over a 12,000-square-mile area, including Sacramento County, and over 30 municipalities with a combined population of about 3 million, including the city of Sacramento (pop: 450,000).
• Ten Colorado cities are creating a vast wireless broadband network for residents, businesses and visitors. The anticipated project deployment is the Fall of 2007.
• Just south of Seattle, the Pierce County Wi-Fi network plans a 1,500 square mile broadband wireless network. 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.

Meanwhile, Unstrung reports WiFi mesh startup SkyPilot Networks is refusing to confirm or deny speculation of major layoffs at the company.

Word has it that SkyPilot has chopped a significant number of staff in a bid to cut its costs. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company has raised $68 million in funding since its inception in 2000. One industry source says that the firm has laid off at least 50 percent of its 80-plus employees since April. The axe fell most heavily on the sales and marketing departments, the source claims.

Chris Sacca, the Head of Special Initiatives at Google, explains some of the trials and tribulations that Google faced while installing its free Wi-Fi network in Google’s hometown of Mountain View, California. Here’s his stock “Dinosaur” speech (MP-3) recorded by IT Conversations.

source : dailywireless.org