Businesses, city launch free public Wi-Fi in Harvard Square

[SteveW]

(While municipal Wi-Fi is floundering in many cities that had big plans, my town ("Our fair city", according to NPR's Click and Clack) has just switched it on in a local area.)


Businesses, city launch free public Wi-Fi in Harvard Square

Harvard Square Business Association drove the project and Anaptyx installed the network for free public Wi-Fi for users within a half mile of the square

By Nick Barber, IDG News Service
June 05, 2008

Home to one of the world's top universities, Harvard Square normally hosts the exchange of ideas, but can now host the exchange of data, too. On Wednesday a number of businesses and organizations partnered to launch free public Wi-Fi for users within a half mile of the square in Cambridge, Mass.

"Wireless in Harvard Square is really going to add to the ambiance, to the access, and to the enjoyment of Harvard Square," said E. Denise Simmons, mayor of Cambridge.

After she flipped the oversized, cartoon-style switch, a Harvard alumnus who returned for his 50th reunion was possibly the network's first official user, even though the network had actually been operational for about 24 hours prior to the official launch.

Logging on just seconds after the launch, the passerby accessed his class reunion Web site using his smartphone.

More...


SW

[Quint101]

I heard a similar story in Decatur, GA, an Atlanta suburb. That city managed to launch their high speed network not too long ago. The story mentioned the failed attempt in Philadelphia, which is 135 square miles (I think). In contrast, Decatur is only 4.4 square miles and it managed to blanket the city with its municipal wireless network. I think that smaller cities will lead the way in free wifi access since they aren't as likely to want a profit... I just hope that more areas get on board... Maybe the costs will drop

[RJB]

What about the latency of something like this if many people are on this wouldnt speeds just be horrible? I just dont see any city having or caring to have the funds to make sure speeds are always up to date.

[Quint101]

This is the info from the city of Decatur website:

http://www.decaturga.com/cgs_citysvc..._wireless.aspx

This is a little like the Cambridge with the public private partnership. Unlike the Cambridge wifi, the first 2 hours are free with additional packages available. Perhaps Cambridge and Decatur are onto something.

[walkguru]

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sounds good to me. I've been using the free wifi at the public librarys in okc. and it pretty sweet.

[Quint101]

Originally Posted by walkguru

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sounds good to me. I've been using the free wifi at the public librarys in okc. and it pretty sweet.

I bet it is. The public library has wifi there as well. The city of Tallahassee has launched a wifi trial on 10 bus routes across town. The express bus I used to ride always had someone using the wifi. The city targeted the longest routes in town and shied away from the campus routes perhaps to see how the locals use the service.

[SteveW]

Originally Posted by RJB

What about the latency of something like this if many people are on this wouldnt speeds just be horrible? I just dont see any city having or caring to have the funds to make sure speeds are always up to date.

I'm not an expert in this, but the service provider is Anaptyx and the hardware they are using is from Meraki. The Meraki site is a bit more useful. Apparently it's not a set of simple wireless routers like one you would have at home. The routers form a "mesh" that balances traffic and is scalable. Here are some excerpts from the Meraki site. Of course, it may be marketing hype:

Scale to Thousands of Simultaneous Users

Field-tested by real-world customers who live in environments ranging from dense apartment communities to entire cities, Meraki's networking platform provides high quality of service to thousands of simultaneous users without missing a beat. Intelligent traffic queuing and packet prioritization, combined with the ability to add an unlimited number of additional network gateways, means your network's capacity can continue to grow with demand.

Interference-aware Mesh Routing

Instead of relying on a single large antenna to cover every user, each radio in a Meraki network cooperates to find the best path to carry a user's traffic to the Internet. As they operate, every network re-evaluates thousands of routing paths every minute, resulting in amazing reliability and network capacity. Meraki's intelligent mesh routing means every repeater you add extends the reach of the network and makes the mesh more reliable by adding additional links.

Seamless Automatic Updates

Once your network is plugged in, Meraki's automated systems ensure everything is kept up to date, from statistics to router software updates. As we develop new features and security updates, they automatically appear on your network — no reboots or notifications required.

SW

[RJB]

Originally Posted by SteveW

I'm not an expert in this, but the service provider is Anaptyx and the hardware they are using is from Meraki. The Meraki site is a bit more useful. Apparently it's not a set of simple wireless routers like one you would have at home. The routers form a "mesh" that balances traffic and is scalable. Here are some excerpts from the Meraki site. Of course, it may be marketing hype:




SW

Thanks for finding this...........

[walkguru]

Wirelessly posted (Walkguru's: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D062; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

Originally Posted by Quint101

I bet it is. The public library has wifi there as well. The city of Tallahassee has launched a wifi trial on 10 bus routes across town. The express bus I used to ride always had someone using the wifi. The city targeted the longest routes in town and shied away from the campus routes perhaps to see how the locals use the service.

lucky you. I just wish they would try that here. but really I'm glad to have the wifi at the librarys. the town of luther has ext. library from okc with the free wifi and its only 10 miles from my house. and did I mention its fast.

[RadioRaiders]

Originally Posted by SteveW

The Meraki site is a bit more useful. Apparently it's not a set of simple wireless routers like one you would have at home.

Thanks for the info. I'm a little confused about what it is still. I read some more info on their web site also.
Wireless Mesh Networking Technology | WiFi Mesh Network by Meraki

Intelligent traffic queuing and packet prioritization, combined with the ability to add an unlimited number of additional network gateways, means your network's capacity can continue to grow with demand.
....
Instead of relying on a single large antenna to cover every user, each radio in a Meraki network cooperates to find the best path to carry a user's traffic to the Internet. As they operate, every network re-evaluates thousands of routing paths every minute, resulting in amazing reliability and network capacity.

I guess it is some kind of centralized system that can be monitored, and I guess can shift a user from one AP to another for mobility. But still it has to operate within 802.11 wifi specs. So that means radio is still radio and if there's a bunch of users on it, the thruput will slow down. But maybe if there's other AP's in range, it can shift the traffic to another AP to ease the congestion.
...I think. At least thats my intrepretation of it. Sounds like a good idea to centralize the WiFi network to make it perform better.

[Blue4Life]

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I believe that they are essentially running something similar to a peer-to-peer type network routing traffic through their access points. The benefits are that you can effectively extend the range & fault-tolerance of the wireless network, but it may possibly be at the expense of network speed.