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Wi-Fi Charlotte? Wireless Charlotte

atlrvr

By atlrvr
in Charlotte

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atlrvr Metropolitan Area

atlrvr

Posted
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Next Monday, Earthlink will make a presentation to Charlotte City Council to propose installing atenneas to Duke Power utility poles city wide, with coverage in all areas that meet a certain density. There would be no cost to the city for equipment, installation, or maintenance. Users would have to pay to use the service (at about 50% below current WiFi rates), but there would potentially be "hotspots" in tourist areas (I'm assuming Uptown) that would allow free connections.

Earthlink claims that Charlotte would be in the top 20 cities as far as coverage provided. The city will likely continue pursuing this opportunity, though will invite other vendors to pitch their services.

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AuLukey Town

AuLukey

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I'm a fan of the much more secure wireless "anywhere" cards for laptops. WiFi has too many security holes. Despite that fact, I think this is good for Charlotte any way you look at it. I wonder which version of WiFi they will implement in our fair city.

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AuLukey Town

AuLukey

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Bah. People's security fears are overblown. Do you really think hackers want to get into your laptop to see your collection of porn and pirated mp3's?

I do love how many people freak out about net security but don't think twice about giving their credit card to someone who makes $2.13 an hour at a bar/restaurant.

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peaceloveunderstanding Town

peaceloveunderstanding

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Just never login to a site that doesn't use secure authentication, don't leave your drives shared, use a firewall, and an active virus scanner, and keep Windows updated. If you do that, you won't be at any more risk using a municipal wireless network than plugging right in.

Eh,

Wireless Internet would be a good idea downtown, it would probably bring more people outside.

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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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The service that atlrvr is talking about will be different. The Earthlink service will not require an external modem to connect...which Clearwire requires an external modem. With Clearwire you can't just go to a park with your wireless laptop and connect....with the Earthlink serivce proposed for Charlotte...you can.
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moving uptown Whistle-Stop

moving uptown

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actually just presented a powerpoint at mba class on wimax and wifi- wimax would just be one uniform signal sent out over a range of up to 30 miles. whereas wifi would be a bunch of different signals each with a range of 50 or so feet. the clearwater website only offers max speed of 1.5 mbs and that is max whereas roadrunner offers up to 10mb/s but practicality says 100kb/s. i would assume that wifi would have better speed since the connection would be split fewer ways (less users bc smaller distance).

i am all for either. i travel around charlotte constantly and it woudl be great to check my email anywhere in the city!

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Sabaidee Hamlet

Sabaidee

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Well only if you are in a park that would have the density they would support. WiFi is very localized where WiMax isn't. For me, I would rather have a WiMax implementation in Charlotte as it would provide a nice alternative to Hellsouth and in my case, the unholy beotch offspring of the mating of Adelphia and Time Warner Cable. WiFi might work on one street and not the next.
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Sabaidee Hamlet

Sabaidee

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Sprint? haha, They might have it but I suspect that, like all of the phone companies, it will be laden with so many hidden charges and conditions that it will end up being quite expensive. And it would be my guess they would block VoIP traffic as they have done in some places.

Charlotte would be better served by a municipal wireless system than depending on one of the traditional providers who will provide a plans that will protect their traditional businesses. Since that is not going to happen here, lets hope that a real independent like ClearWire will set up shop in the city.

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voyager12 Town

voyager12

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The city made Freedom Park a free Wi-Fi zone not too long ago. Very close to me. Not that it matters since I tap into at least four of my neighbor's networks when I unplug RR and sit on my apt's front porch :blush: A lot of people are already mooching the plethora of unprotected networks, so this program may not radically change anything.

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uptownliving Town

uptownliving

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I went to the City Council meeting on this tonight. Here are some notes from the meeting tonight:

A stakeholders cmte is being put together that includes UNCC, Duke Energy, and City of Charlotte.

Earthlink is the largest independent ISP in the country and is very financially stable.

They are looking at offering this service in areas that have a density of at least 2,000 people per sq mile. According to city staff that will cover about 75% of Charlotte.

The antenna will be attached to power poles ownded by Duke Energy.

Earthlink expects to charge about $20 per month for this service. They also plan to offer a $10 per month plan for those that can't afford the $20 a month plan.

Also there will be free service offered in the uptown area...however the free service will be a lower bandwidth than the subscriber service.

Charlotte has sent out letters to other ISP's asking them to respond by the end of this month if they are interested in pursuing something similar to what Earthlink wants to do.

Councilman Lassiter mentioned that in his trip to Italy this summer he noticed people using WiFi everywhere he went and felt that Charlotte needed to get a good WiFi service implemented ASAP.

The service that Earthlink will offer is about $40 cheaper per month that what you can get today via Sprint, Verizon, etc.

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dubone Megalopolis

dubone

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Is it actually WiFi, compatible to 802.11b/g, where everyone's WiFi cards will work, or is it a newer technology where we'd need a new card in our laptops?

I'm just going to go out on a limb and assume "uptown" means Tryon Street and the residential wards can just plan to keep paying.

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monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

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Maybe, maybe not. What is being lost here, is that most municipal WiFi installations have lots of technical problems. It is a LAN technology that isn't suited for this kind of use. The reason that companies like Earthlink push for it is because it operates on unlicensed frequencies so they don't have to pay for the spectrum. Of course you get what you pay for. A cell phone or your neighbor's baby room monitor can cause it not to work in your house.

http://news.techdirt.com/news/wireless/article/6717

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