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Lev Gonick of Case Western writes about how city-led large-scale Wi-Fi is the wrong approach: Gonick has been involved in expanding OneCommunity since its launch in 2002, and it now spans “thousands of route miles of community owned fiber” with a strategy based on connecting stakeholders who anchor the network. The assessment, availability, and use of fiber assets is one of the missing pieces, he argues, from the municipal plans that were developed and have failed. (Some muni-Fi includes fiber as one component, but rarely as the key starting point.) With OneCleveland, fiber anchors Wi-Fi which flows from appropriately connected institutions—“libraries, schools, universities, community centers, and health care facilities.”
This is partly what happened in San Francisco: fiber appeared as an option (at great expense, mind you) after the parameters around a city-wide Wi-Fi network were fully understood. It’s unclear whether there’s the will in San Francisco to spend the money, but there’s little reason to argue against fiber, as it’s the current ultimate technology: You can’t beat it, but can you afford it? Companies don’t locate in cities where fiber is scarce. Cities can’t efficiently run their often far-flung sets of offices today without a fiber infrastructure; they fritter a lot of money away on expensive wired hook-ups. I’ve heard a lot of talk from municipalities about how putting in fiber—or having a fiber provider move into the city—pays back rather quickly for that reason.
Posted by Glennf at September 4, 2007 11:34 AM
Categories: Metro-Scale Networks, Municipal
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://db.isbn.nu/mt3/mt-tb.pl/4782
Our experience with Mesh and Fiber indicates that it (Fiber) is the most cost effective Gateway for any carrier grade Wireless Mesh Network. The big hit next to the initial deployment cost (if not already in place)is the cost to tap into the fiber and drop 100Mbps+ off to the Wireless Node.
However, we have found a simple low cost solution from GarrettCom who provides a series of managed (Hardened) Fiber Switches ($700/Model 6KQ)that can be cost effectively deployed in a simple fiber ring (sharing 2 strands of fiber across the network) and delivering 4 10/100 Ethernet Ports to each Node/AP.
Any true carrier grade Mesh network gatewat will require 100Mbps of bandwidth per node.
The fiber allows a provider to design a network and cost effectively distribute the mesh rings throughout a City where needed. In addition it allows these Mesh Nets to support a Video Surveillance network.
If one looks at the present approach (Costs)to provide Gateways (usually 20Mbps)we find a Wireless PTMP/PTP Radio (like Canopy) deployed every 4-6 nodes. What are these costs vs a Fiber drop every 8-10 Nodes delivering a solid 100Mbps of bandwidth?
One also needs a robust Mesh technology like Strix with its 2 5Ghz Backhaul radios (and plans for 802.11n in the backhaul) to make this all work.
Jim
Posted by: Jim A at September 5, 2007 6:12 AM