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The wireless technologies we have today don't deliver anywhere close to the throughput of fiber. There's no way municipal WiFi will support every household runn

The wireless technologies we have today don't deliver anywhere close to the throughput of fiber. There's no way municipal WiFi will support every household running a couple of Netflix streams at the same time in the evening, something that's (occasionally) possible on cable infrastructure. We've already seen from dense apartment buildings that WiFi does not deal well with more than a handful of active users at close range, even on separate SSIDs. Some form of radio communication might be the answer, but there is very little unallocated bandwidth and it's bandwidth that we need.

rayiner 11y ago
If we're going to spend limited public resources on building network infrastructure, the target use case shouldn't be households watching a couple of Netflix streams in the evening on their iPads. We should instead build the technologies that can deliver the broadest connectivity at the lowest cost, so people can apply for jobs, kids can do homework, send pictures to their friends or parents, etc. Wireless wins big on flexibility, and can be deployed at a cost that might allow cash-strapped municipalities to offer it as a free service. You'll never achieve that with high-cost and high-maintenance wired infrastructure.
- superuser2 11y ago
  Every New Yorker can already get good enough internet to apply for jobs and do homework, both from an ISP and a local public library. That need is already well served by current infrastructure; there's no point in duplicating it. If current options are too expensive, than subsidies would seem much simpler than new infrastructure. Municipal fiber is not proposed in places that lack internet service, it's proposed in places that lack good internet service. People are upset that aging and oversubscribed cable company infrastructure isn't good enough for their media consumption desires, and municipal fiber is the solution. Where we have problems getting people online at all is in rural areas, where 1) there are no municipalities and 2) distances are far too long for WiFi. There, the best option is low-cost point-to-point antennae on high ground. The hard part for rural Wireless ISPs has been finding someone to sell them transit at a fair price.
  - Zigurd 11y ago
    I've got better internet in rural New Mexico, due to a subsidy to a local ISP to put in fiber, than I do in a town in Massachusetts that is full of people in the tech industry.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- MikeNomad 11y ago
  In the case of LUSFiber, part of the process included voting on a bond issue. It passed, and the build began. The effort has been successful enough to create a profit, which has been put back into the build, allowing them to reach more homes and businesses than originally planned, pay the bond off early, etc. (Source: Talking to a half-dozen of their business and residential customers in April, 2015). LUSFiber is, lacking a better term, solvent. Which cash strapped municipalities using public funds are you referring to?
spacecowboy_lon 11y ago
The CISCO Wifi Certifications says 10 hosts per AP as a rule of thumb - you can probably push it to 15 or so but you would have to limit the connection speed.

rayiner 11y ago

If we're going to spend limited public resources on building network infrastructure, the target use case shouldn't be households watching a couple of Netflix streams in the evening on their iPads. We should instead build the technologies that can deliver the broadest connectivity at the lowest cost, so people can apply for jobs, kids can do homework, send pictures to their friends or parents, etc. Wireless wins big on flexibility, and can be deployed at a cost that might allow cash-strapped municipalities to offer it as a free service. You'll never achieve that with high-cost and high-maintenance wired infrastructure.

superuser2 11y ago
Every New Yorker can already get good enough internet to apply for jobs and do homework, both from an ISP and a local public library. That need is already well served by current infrastructure; there's no point in duplicating it. If current options are too expensive, than subsidies would seem much simpler than new infrastructure. Municipal fiber is not proposed in places that lack internet service, it's proposed in places that lack good internet service. People are upset that aging and oversubscribed cable company infrastructure isn't good enough for their media consumption desires, and municipal fiber is the solution. Where we have problems getting people online at all is in rural areas, where 1) there are no municipalities and 2) distances are far too long for WiFi. There, the best option is low-cost point-to-point antennae on high ground. The hard part for rural Wireless ISPs has been finding someone to sell them transit at a fair price.
- Zigurd 11y ago
  I've got better internet in rural New Mexico, due to a subsidy to a local ISP to put in fiber, than I do in a town in Massachusetts that is full of people in the tech industry.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
MikeNomad 11y ago
In the case of LUSFiber, part of the process included voting on a bond issue. It passed, and the build began. The effort has been successful enough to create a profit, which has been put back into the build, allowing them to reach more homes and businesses than originally planned, pay the bond off early, etc. (Source: Talking to a half-dozen of their business and residential customers in April, 2015). LUSFiber is, lacking a better term, solvent. Which cash strapped municipalities using public funds are you referring to?

spacecowboy_lon 11y ago

The CISCO Wifi Certifications says 10 hosts per AP as a rule of thumb - you can probably push it to 15 or so but you would have to limit the connection speed.