Well, here’s something you don’t hear about too often these days – a successful public WiFi effort.
IBM said it has deployed a wireless broadband network across the city’s 7.1 miles and is now working with Miami Beach officials on acceptance testing.
The City of Miami Beach has a $5.1 million, six-year contract with Big Blue to design, deploy, implement and maintain a secure citywide wireless broadband network. The goal of the program was to offer public safety/government applications but riding on top of that idea was the desire to offer free citywide public Internet access.
The contract says that at least 95% of the city will have outdoor WiFi coverage and at least 70% of the city will have indoor coverage up through the second floor of a building. IBM will offer high-rise buildings a 25% discount toward the costs of installing an antenna to bring the signal in above the third floor. IBM is also offering discounted IBM equipment to purchase and technology workshops for school children, teachers, and seniors. IBM is working with a partner -- wireless vendor Alvarion – to complete the contract.
Published reports said the city has hired Jim Geier, founder of Wireless-Nets, Ltd, and an expert in wireless-based networks, to conduct citywide tests to validate and verify that the network provided by IBM meets the requirements specified in the contract with the City.
The apparent success of this project flies in the face of many recent municipal wireless access projects that have failed. For example, AT&T last month informed St. Louis city officials it was pulling the plug on a planned free wireless Internet access plan that was supposed to roll out over the next two years. AT&T high cited costs and technical issues as the main reasons the plan failed. The refrain sounded familiar. St. Louis joins Chicago, San Francisco, Houston and others who have had ambitious WiFi plans quashed by high costs and technical gotchas.
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Other countries are a step ahead.
I’m glad for the people of Miami, but some European countries are advancing an a faster pace. In Estonia WiFi is available all across the country, even at gas stations. (Amazing how far they have come since their independence from Russia). I just saw a website about Estonia’s Singing Revolution – http://singingrevolution.com; this is quite inspirational.