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Municipal wireless network

Wi-fi network provided by local government

  • 26 min read
  • 5 chapters

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Overview

Municipal wireless networks go far beyond the existing piggybacking opportunities available near public libraries and some coffee shops. The basic premise of carpeting an area with wireless service in urban centers is that it is more economical to the community to provide the service as a utility rather than to have individual households and businesses pay private firms for such a service. Such networks are capable of enhancing city management and public safety, especially when used directly by city employees in the field. They can also be a social service to those who cannot afford private high-speed services. When the network service is free and a small number of clients consume a majority of the available capacity, operating and regulating the network might prove difficult.

In 2003, Verge Wireless formed an agreement with Tropos Networks to build a municipal wireless networks in the downtown area of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Carlo MacDonald, the founder of Verge Wireless, suggested that it could provide cities a way to improve economic development and developers to build mobile applications that can make use of faster bandwidth. Verge Wireless built networks for Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and other areas. Some applications include wireless security cameras, police mug shot software, and location-based advertising.

In 2007, some companies with existing cell sites offered high-speed wireless services where the laptop owner purchased a PC card or adapter based on EV-DO cellular data receivers or WiMAX rather than 802.11b/g. A few high-end laptops at that time featured built-in support for these newer protocols. WiMAX is designed to implement a metropolitan area network (MAN) while 802.11 is designed to implement a wireless local area network (LAN). However, the use of cellular networks is expensive for the consumers, as they are often on limited data plans.

In the 2010s larger cities embraced the smart city concept to tackle problems such as traffic congestion, crime, encouraging economic growth, responding to the effects of climate change and improving the delivery of city services. However, by 2018 it has become clear that the private sector could not be relied upon to build up city-wide wireless networks to meet the smart city objectives of municipal governments and public utility providers.

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