Philadelphia is being called the “poster child of the municipal wireless movement” with their citywide Wi-Fi network scheduled to be operational by next summer. If we want to get anywhere close to my “wireless anywhere” mantra, experiments like Philadelphia’s are an absolute must. I am looking forward to hearing how well things work in the city:
“Setting up a citywide network is definitely not as easy as putting up access points all over the place,” said Doug Schremp, chief technology officer of BTS Partners, a consulting firm that designs and deploys networks. “There are some technical issues that need to be addressed, and cities really need to look at the operational and business issues that come with building and owning their own network.”
More importantly, there are fears of wireless interference which would result in very unreliable connections. Apparently in testing, Philadelphia did not find any problems related to interference. Boston on the other hand, has seen major problems (look at the number of universities and colleges in the area to see why). I think there probably needs to be more testing done.
Hopefully we’ll see more of these citywide roll-outs when WiMax becomes popular, as it should help to decrease the cost of not only setting up the network, but also maintaining it. And as more networks go up, the problems associated will become more clear, and can then be solved. In any case, the Philadelphia network is very promising!
Read: CNET News.com
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