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November 7, 2007

Boston Wi-Fi Network Delayed

By Glenn Fleishman

The Boston Wi-Fi network won’t be built in 2008, to no one’s surprise: The Boston plan, announced 31 July 2006 (see my coverage), described a nonprofit that would raise funds to create a wholesale network that would resell to all comers. The network would build Wi-Fi and a fiber ring. Yesterday’s Boston Globe notes that the network plans have been slightly scaled back, while a pilot network has been built through donations of time and material from the private firm that built the public access/public safety network Brookline, Mass.—Galaxy Internet Services (which used Strix gear in Brookline)—and BelAir Networks. The advantage of a nonprofit handling this side of things means that it’s easier to accept donations without political repercussions.

The Grove Hall neighborhood pilot project was launched over Labor Day with 42 Wi-Fi nodes. A middle school earlier this week did their own testing to map strong and weak areas of coverage. Another 10 to 13 nodes are planned to fill in dead areas. The head of OpenAirBoston, the non-profit planning the network, said, “As other cities have found, we need more equipment than we’d initially expected to get the coverage.” No kidding. Ostensibly, that’s how we learn from mistakes, by not repeating them.

Posted by Glennf at November 7, 2007 10:27 AM

Categories: Metro-Scale Networks, Municipal

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