Milwaukee, Wisc.'s long-delayed Wi-Fi network faces a further elongation of the schedule to as late as "never": Midwest Fiber Networks agreed to build the city's network as part of a deal that would allow them to leverage their fiber infrastructure and services. I don't know the Wi-Fi equipment vendor they chose--last I can find, they were evaluating equipment 18 months ago from several companies, including Tropos and Cisco--but the network just isn't robust enough in their testing. (The picture shown with this linked article is clearly a Tropos node, but I'm not sure if it's a file photo or not. Update: A reader says that Milwaukee went with Cisco gear.)
The usual suspects emerge: Inconsistent performance, lack of coverage, more nodes will be needed, etc. Midwest Fiber might abandon the plan altogether. They are studying "whether it will make financial sense to build the network." Sound familiar?
Glenn,
The picture in the article is a Cisco node.
In Madison they mounted the Cisco gear fairly low.
Looks like they did the same in Milwaukee.
They will need a very high node density in order to get good coverage.
PhilB
"Inconsistent performance, lack of coverage, more nodes will be needed, etc."
All consistent with selection of the wrong Mesh technology and the spin these vendors place on the value of having more Nodes and Gateways per Sq Mile. WHat a joke.
These folks at MidWest Fiber have the right backbone for Gateways and that is Fiber. Fiber will turn out to be key to any serious Carrier Grade Wireless Mesh. These nets will need a 100Mbps per Gateway if they are to survive the Broadband symmetrical demands on these mesh nets.
Jim A