Silicon Valley wireless project moves on
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A proposal to blanket 1,500 square miles of Silicon Valley with affordable wireless access to the Internet stepped closer to reality Tuesday after a joint task force selected Silicon Valley Metro Connect to build and operate the network.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. - A proposal to blanket 1,500 square miles of Silicon Valley with affordable wireless access to the Internet stepped closer to reality Tuesday after a joint task force selected Silicon Valley Metro Connect to build and operate the network.
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Meraki Networks&#39; plan to cover San Francisco with free Wi-Fi, with residents&#39; help, could be a way around the political and business barriers some municipal wireless projects have run into.The startup, partly funded by Google, believes it will succeed&#160;where EarthLink and Google did not: Building Wi-Fi access throughout San Francisco at no cost to the city. It expects to finish by year&#39;s end, filling the whole city with 1Mbps coverage.The catch is that Meraki is footing the whole bill on this project so that&#160;it can learn how to roll out such networks for profit elsewhere. The good news, if the plan works, is that it could do so for less than $5 million, lower than the cost many other municipal wireless projects have run into. That&#39;s partly because of intelligence in access points and software, making the network more robust with fewer nodes, according to Meraki spokeswoman Erika Shaffer.Meraki will build the backbone of its network with solar-powered rooftop access points and fill out its coverage with smaller repeaters to sit in windows or on balconies. Both will be designed and built by Meraki and provided free to residents and businesses that agree to house the gear on their property in return for better coverage. All the nodes will be meshed, so Meraki won&#39;t have to get wired broadband links everywhere its access points go.The idea has potential in developing countries with little broadband, where Meraki sees its biggest market, but also in highly wired cities such as San Francisco, analysts said.A key advantage is that by asking users instead of the city for mounting rights for its gear, Meraki will bypass the rancorous political fights over contract terms like the one that slowed down EarthLink&#39;s initiative last year. But seeking volunteers also makes sure that however fully Meraki has actually covered the city by the end of the year, it is pretty sure to have coverage where people actually want it.&quot;You know exactly where your coverage needs to be, because someone just asked you for a repeater,&quot; said IDC analyst Godfrey Chua.Meraki believes it won&#39;t have any trouble getting people to host repeaters in their homes, based on its existing test networks in parts of San Francisco, Shaffer said. There are about 500 repeaters today, and about 40,000 people have used the network, she said.Another problem that would seem to solve itself, assuming the network and distribution system run smoothly, is the difficult issue of indoor coverage, said Craig Settles, an independent municipal network analyst at Successful.com. EarthLink&#39;s network was to be built largely on streetlights and electricity poles, which are well suited to mobile outdoor coverage, but not so good for providing home broadband to residents who can&#39;t afford wired alternatives, Settles said. Meraki&#39;s small repeaters are designed for indoor coverage in the home where they&#39;re located as well as to flesh out the whole network.On the San Francisco network, which Meraki will treat as a research and development cost, the company will test advertising as a possible revenue source for future deployments. When it approaches service providers that want to charge for access, it will also offer a billing system. Meraki has trials going on today with carriers in developing countries, Shaffer said.In places where most people don&#39;t yet have broadband, Meraki&#39;s approach could be an attractive low-cost alternative, analysts said. However, WiMax, which requires far fewer base stations than Wi-Fi because it has a longer range, also has relatively low costs and is already a competitor in those markets, Chua said.&quot;I doubt that Wi-Fi would be the dominant access medium in emerging markets,&quot; Chua said.
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A Wi-Fi hot-spot builder develops a decked-out trailer capable of delivering broadband access even in the middle of nowhere. The WanderPod gets its first test run at the launch of SpaceShipOne in the Mojave Desert. By Dan Brekke.
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Silicon Valley Metro Connect, a collaboration among Azulstar Networks, Cisco Systems, IBM (NYSE: IBM), and Seakay, has been selected to build and operate Silicon Valley's regional wireless network that will serve 2.4 million people.
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By Robert Weisman, The Boston Globe  Jun. 9--Boston's plan to blanket the city with wireless Internet  connections is set to pick up speed this month as companies jockey to play a  role and a pilot WiFi project gets underway in a square-mile area of the Grove  Hall neighborhood.
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San Franciscoâs mayor, Gavin Newsom, remains committed to a plan to roll out a citywide Wi-Fi network despite EarthLinkâs decision to bow out an agreement to build the system.
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Hoping to accelerate the deployment of a new wireless technology, Intel Corp. announced Monday it&#39;s invested in a venture started by billionaire Craig McCaw to deliver high-speed Internet service over the airwaves.
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InfoWorld - Despite the tribulations of launching a regional wireless Internet network, some cities are making progress by sharing their hard-won lessons.
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Startup Solis Energy says solar energy for routers could bring Wi-Fi to remote sites.
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Chip maker wants you to know about the benefits of a wireless network.
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Will launch a fixed wireless service in a 'major city' next year
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SAN FRANCISCO - The big idea came on a trip: Ted Morgan and Michael Shean used Wi-Fi signals in their travels so often to pick up e-mail, they saw a business opportunity in their future.
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.  - Wireless services will  lead the next growth phase of the Internet as venture  capitalists who helped fund the early boom open their wallets  again, industry leaders said Monday.
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More details of Sprint's WiMax initiative at CES, including pledges by several partners and Sprint that the effort is on track.
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Chip maker will being testing the emerging, high-speed wireless technology.
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Bidding on a coveted block of wireless frequencies continued yesterday, as unidentified companies continued to compete for rights to build the nation's first open wireless network.