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WiFi Outlook Cloudy in Mountain View
By Larry Hendrick | November 8, 2006
This was to be the poster child for the Muni WiFi crowd. The muscle of Google and the technology of Tropos … a team that couldn’t lose. Or so it was thought.
It seems that not all is bright in paradise, and Google seems satisfied with the results. The question now … how will this bode with the San Francisco project that teams these two with Earthlink.
Light Reading - WiFi Outlook Cloudy in Mountain View - Telecom News Analysis
Users of the Google-supported municipal WiFi network in Mountain View, Calif., have chimed in on the service they’re getting — and the picture is about as rosy as a military update from Baghdad.
Writing on a Google message board, users responded to the question, “How many residents (or users) in Mountain View are benefiting from Google’s WiFi Network?”
A sampling of the responses indicates that the network still has a long way to go:
* “My house is on California St. (cross street is Rengstorff) and I can rarely have the Google WiFi stable connected by using Ruckus MetroFlex device (the PepLink is worse). I cannot use Google’s network even though house (and window) is by the street, so I cannot imagine how the people who are living away from the street can access Google’s wifi network.” (Posted by “weili”)
The response from Google isn’t exactly what the people wanted to hear, either. They pushed the ‘outdoor network’ excuse to explain why it didn’t work inside buildings.
The question of the coverage in Mountain View is a ticklish one for the search giant because Google has promoted the deployment as a high-powered showcase for its municipal networking technology (the infrastructure in Mountain View is supplied by Tropos Networks Inc. ). As other cities around the country experience unexpected hiccups in deploying WiFi networks, the dissatisfaction in Mountain View could give pause to officials and users in other towns looking at muni networks. (See Mesh: Interference in the City?)
In other words, if Mountain View — an affluent, relatively small, and extremely tech-savvy community in the heart of Silicon Valley — can’t get decent service, how will less favored cities fare?
I am continually amazed at the people that think this particular technology, 802.11 will provide this type service. Other installations are seeing interference problems that render the network unusable, yet cities persist in pushing this forward.
There are current technologies that will provide this service, but the problem is one of cost. End users don’t seem willing to spend over $1000 just to get wireless Internet to their homes or businesses.
Topics: WiFi |