* WLANs to come in Minneapolis, San Francisco peninsula
More metropolitan wireless LAN contracts are in the news, with Cisco, IBM and others winning the contract for a huge wireless network down the peninsula in San Francisco, and BelAir Networks and U.S. Internet winning a contract for WLANs in Minneapolis.
My colleague John Cox tells how Cisco, IBM and partners Azulstar Networks and SeaKay were able to win the contract for the Silicon Valley network. This network will cover 1,500 square miles and offer access to 2.4 million residents in 42 peninsula communities, Cox writes. Detailed contract negotiations are next, with a rollout starting at year-end.
I used to live on the peninsula, so now I may have a reason to be envious of those I left behind. Perhaps it would be easier to provide such access in that area than it would be in other areas, what with the highly dense population in a small, narrow area.
Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, BelAir announced that the city has chosen U.S. Internet to provide a broadband wireless mesh network to cover the entire city, using BelAir equipment. BelAir says the initiative will result in one of the largest wireless cities in the country, at 54 square miles.
“Learning from the experiences and challenges faced by other cities, Minneapolis has chosen both a business model and a technology solution that ensure immediate, ongoing, and sustainable benefits to our citizens, visitors, municipal workers and public safety personnel,” said Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak, in a statement.
Are we approaching a time when ubiquitous WLAN-based access to the Internet is offered as a utility like any other? It seemed at first like it would be something that would come slowly, but now the concept appears to be picking up steam.
