All posts in the topic Wireless Internet in Roseville (Short link)
Summary
- There are 2 posts — by 2 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by John Kysylyczyn at Jun 26 06:11 UTC
Have any efforts been made recently by the City of Roseville to consider
wireless internet as an option for residents,as well asfor fire, police, and
emergency services? I am becoming familiar with the Minneapolis Wi-Fi network,
its current operation, how it is working for residents and City services (at
least eventually it will be), and how it will cover all of Minneapolis by this
fall, so I'm curious about what efforts have been, or are being made.
I understand that some peoplemay have reservations about municipal Wi-Fi, but
it is working in Minneapolis, although better in some areas than others. It is
also a much cheaper alternative to internet service than Comcast currently is.
I would love to answer any questions about the subject that people may have --
Dan Nelson
Municipal wireless is dead.
Based upon what has happened in at least 20 cities I have read up on, it is
viable if you don't mind it being another money pit like the Oval.
Minneapolis has Wi-Fi, but it is slow. Yes it is faster than dialup, but maybe
two or three times faster and that's it. In this day and age, that just
doesn't cut it for many people. Sure it is great for email, but my Netflix
internet TV box wouldn't work on it in the high quality mode because it just
isn't fast enough.
Yes municipal Wi-Fi is cheaper than what Comcast is offering, but if you
compare speed versus cost, I believe that Comcast is probably a better deal.
If you compare their Wi-Fi vs. DSL, you may find the same thing. So what that
means is that if you are in the nitch of where you want faster than dialup, but
don't need DSL or cable speed, then this might be the service for you. But
maybe that is the failure of municipal internet, in that it may only appeal to
a sliver of the customers.
Now if Roseville owned the electrical utility, like Anoka or North Saint Paul
does, then maybe you run fiber to all the homes. If you own the poles, you can
do whatever you want. But since we don't own the poles, the city can only do
this thing wirelessly and the technology just isn't there.
The guy from Comcast told me Monday that they are going to start installing
fiber out on the poles in a year or two here in Roseville. They are hesitant
to running fiber to the homes at this point because of the maintenance costs
associated with that final run.
One of the bigger efforts made on this issue in a broad sense was during my
term in office where I had a small report prepared which looked at the cost of
installing underground conduit along all of our main county roads. If there is
a city role in this, I believed it may be better if it is limited to providing
infrastructure for hosting the technology. So we own the tunnels and this will
allow companies to lease space from the city and install and upgrade technology
in a quick and easy fashion. (note you are limited on what you can hang on
power poles unless you want to make them taller, etc. which is why the tunnel
idea) This was a great idea, but of course the cost was expensive for just the
major roads. Unfortunately no one was thinking about these things when we
rebuilt all the side streets the last 30 years or we could have already had
something in place there. Well it would have taken a massive financial
commitment and some elected leadership to pull this one off. Unfortunately
there really weren't many people willing to step forward to make this a
reality. If we would have done this, we would have been able to quickly
disperse technology to the neighborhoods and then a private company would have
only had to worry about direction connection from the neighborhood level to the
homes.
John M. Kysylyczyn
K Solutions LLC, owner
3083 Victoria Street
Roseville, MN 55113
email: <email obscured>
home office: (651) 484-1384
www.ksolutionsllc.com
Mayor of Roseville, MN 2000-2004