Rodent Regatta

Nancy Goering, posting at Glenn Fleishman’s site, provides a link to an article that sounds like something I’d write about web standards or maybe even Wi-Fi. In other words, something written by someone who just didn’t have the terminology straight or the concepts clearly pictured in their brains.

The question remains: what is the bill of materials that is required to connect ’x’ number of users in a five square mile area with a wi-fi network? Clearly, the user needs a wi-fi card or wi-fi-ready PC. From there, I assume there’s a conventional wireless access point. From there, what? 802.16? Something else? Fiber to the WAP?

She follows that article with another that hits closer to home. Cincinnati is planning a metropolitan Wi-Fi cloud. I’m not a fan of taxes to build these things, but I am a fan of the notion that a strong WISP in a city might offer a serious alternative to the monopolistic attitudes of many cable companies and DSL providers. Small businesses and home owners would be the big beneficiaries.

The most important link and information in the entire article is this, ”... said Esmie Vos, founder of MuniWireless.com, an Amsterdam-based Web site that tracks Wi-Fi projects worldwide.” I glanced at the web site and I’m hopeful that it will connect me with someone who can describe for me what it takes to put wi-fi over a five square mile area. From there I can begin to understand the complexities of the ”typical” municipal or campus wi-fi project.