[Hidden-tech] Municipal Broadband in Northampton--not WiFi

[Patrick Foley]

All of wifi's problems are solved with repeaters. This, of course, will
introduce latency but you can solve that with multiple hard lines.
Blanketing downtown Northampton with a decent wifi signal is completely
possible, the issue is actually powering the repeaters... and it could even
be reliably streaming-video-fast, depending on how we'd support older
802.11 tech.

I agree with the original email though, Northampton is ideal for a
municipal running of fiber. It might run into trouble, depending on the
contracts that the city has with Comcast/Verizon and possibly against state
law. This sort of thing has been fought before in other states.

   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
   ** If you did, we all thank you.

WiFi has multiple problems:

1. The transmit power is limited by the FCC Rules & Regs. Max is 1 watt.
Worse is that there are no WiFi units that are designed to operate near
this power level.

As an aside, never be 'cute' and tell your wireless router you are in
Europe. That setting automatically reduces the output power level to
conform with EU rules.

2. The amount of antenna gain that can be had is also limited.

3. Any increase is WiFi bandwidth form 802.11b reduces signal range. Sorry
but even the FCC can not change physics.

I think you will find that the best that WiFi can do is a lot less than all
downtown 'Hamp.

4. Then there is 802.11a. That is a higher frequency, 4 watt max, "campus"
system. I don't even see that system doing anything close to all downtown.

Jim Ussailis

Original email:
-----------------
From: Fateh Slavitskaya fateh at urchn.org
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 20:22:18 -0500
To: palwilliams at northamptontv.org, hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Municipal Broadband in Northampton

   ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's area.
   ** If you did, we all thank you.

Big diff between muni broadband and muni wifi. Having both would be
great, if the wifi could actually work. -F

On Fri, 2013-11-29 at 18:24 -0500, Al Williams wrote:
>    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the member's
area.
>    ** If you did, we all thank you.
>
>
>
> Quite a few municipal Wi-Fi experiments have been troubled - see
> Portland, OR. Shrewsbury offers municipal hard line system.
>
> On Nov 29, 2013 6:13 PM, "Shel Horowitz, Ethical/Green Marketing
> Expert" <shel at principledprofit.com> wrote:
>            ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the
>         member's area.
>            ** If you did, we all thank you.
>
>
>         Amherst has town wi-fi--might be good to talk to someone over
>         there.
>         Though frankly, I have had very poor experience trying to log
>         on to
>         the town wi-fi network from e.g., Amherst Coffee.
>
>         At 1:08 PM -0500 11/29/13, Seth Fischer wrote:
>         >    ** Be sure to fill out the survey/skills inventory in the
>         member's area.
>         >    ** If you did, we all thank you.
>         >
>         >
>         >Hello All,
>         >
>         >I am interested in promoting the idea of Municipal (offered)
>         >Broadband in Northampton. Comcast is simply too expensive and
>         low
>         >speed for the citizens and businesses in Northampton. I
>         believe
>         >Municipal Broadband would help the residents, as well as make
>         the
>         >City more appealing to businesses.
>         >
>         >I believe Northampton is an idea location, as such as large
>         percent
>         >of the population is within 1 mile of downtown.
>         >
>         >I have spoken with a City Councillor who expressed
>         significant
>         >interest in (at least) exploring the idea.
>         >
>         >Does anyone know any of the issues related to a Municipal
>         Broadband
>         >initiative?
>         >
>         >Thanks,
>         >
>         >Seth Fischer
>         >
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>         --
>
>
>         _________________________________________________
>         Shel Horowitz - Green Business Profitability Expert
>         Helping you find the value in your values since 1981 - because
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