Wi-Fi Plan Abandoned For Chicago

[sbl_admin]

An ambitious plan to blanket the city with wireless broadband Internet will be shelved because it is too costly and too few residents would use it, Chicago officials said Tuesday.

[joepole]

WiMax is much more suited for applications like this and it's going to be incorporated in name-brand chipsets starting next year.

[rhertz]

Wimax won't change anything. The problem with "muni wifi" is not the technology, it's the business model. If Tempe AZ had Wimax today, it still would not have kept the model from failing.

http://wifinetnews.com/archives/007869.html

The real benefactors of Wimax will be the cell phone companies. Whereas Wifi uses unlicensed spectrum (Part 15), the majority of Wimax will utilize licensed spectrum at higher power.

[joepole]

It's a completely different business model because the infrastructure costs are less by about an order of magnitude. There's a huge difference between funding a $20M project and a $2M project.

[rhertz]

Originally Posted by joepole

It's a completely different business model because the infrastructure costs are less by about an order of magnitude. There's a huge difference between funding a $20M project and a $2M project.

If you are saying that it takes an order of magnitude fewer AP's with Wimax compared to WiFi to receive the same coverage, I would have to agree if you are comparing unlicensed Wifi to licensed Wimax using privately owned bands. However I would have to disagree if you are comparing Wifi to Wimax both playing by the same Part 15 rules. (same band, same max EIRP) The laws of Physics cannot be changed, but you know this already.

[rhertz]

More coverage on this subject. I have been following the muni-wifi news for some time....

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20521155/

http://web20.telecomtv.com/pages/?ne...2a10&view=news

http://www.unstrung.com/document.asp...ng_sitedefault

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2007/08/...thlink-el.html

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/6120