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The Newest Muni-WiFi News
By Larry Hendrick | January 25, 2007
I’ve waited more than a week to pen this article on my latest brush with the muni-WiFi proponents.
Some of you know, I am active in the League City Economic Development Corporation and even chair one of the business committees. I am extremely pro-active in the pursuit of any aspect of economic development when and where it makes sense.
At last weeks meeting, the guest speaker was there for the purpose of presenting BAHEP’s (Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership) participation in a new WiFi initiative in the Bay Area, south of Houston.
I understood the presenter to be a technical expert on the subject, ready to answer questions from the group of business people assembled at the meeting.
The presentation was exactly what I expected, presenting all the claims of the regular proponents of this action use.
- save money
- bridge digital divide
- economic development
In beginning the presentation, the gentleman made the statement that wifi was like the wireless available at your house, then let slip a couple of words about lack of reliability. and later mentioned that the product usually doesn’t penetrate buildings very well.
The PowerPoint presentation was laced with all the reasons a city would be crazy not to join them in pursuing this course of action.
Then Q&A time. After several nondescript questions, I raised my hand and asked for clarification on several of the points above (cheaper service and poor access) and got the usual answers you’ve all heard before. I then asked more specifically about the unreliability and lack of business use because of building penetration issues, specifically narrowing the scope down to 802.11.
The speaker then stated that we were getting into a technical area and quickly called on someone else for a question.
What I didn’t get the chance to reply was …
Yes, these are technical questions because this is a very technical proposition. Since I assumed this engineer would be qualified to discuss the real technical aspects, I was seeking to make several points clear to the audience, but, alas, that did not happen. I did try to ask a few more questions, but to no avail.
Later in other discussions, I tried to learn who the technical consultant is on the proposed project, and it seems there isn’t one at this time. It’s really bad when advocates of this technology think the best way to sell this product is to paint a picture of the perfect world, and forget about reality.
There is so much more to say on this subject, but time is always an issue. One point I do want to revisit is the whole concept of economic developmentargument. I have yet to get a definitive answer, backed up with documentation on this point. If this really is great for economic development, I want to see the statistics with hard numbers, not just platitudes about business recruitment based on a poorly implemented Muni WiFi.
What business would make a decision for locating a multi-million dollar corporation on the basis of wireless Internet availability in a city park? Really, I want to know which business is documented to have made this decision.
If you want a look at the real costs involved, read this article I wrote last year and this follow-up.
All right, I’m done for now.
January 26th, 2007 at 8:05 am
What’s that you said? “The emperor has no clothes”? LOL
January 26th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Yeah! that’s the ticket, Dave …