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Yoda: Lost a planet, Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing. - Attack of the Clones
Earthlink is planning to offer wireless ISPs franchises for muni-wireless deployments in towns that they have no plans to bid on, reports ISP Planet.
"In exchange for the roaming agreement and other unspecified conditions, EarthLink will share the architecture, offer its volume pricing for equipment and services, and, if the WISP wishes, share EarthLink products and its support infrastructure," notes the report. Earthlink would offer no financing and there would be no revenue sharing.
EarthLink has acquired New Edge Networks (above), a Vancouver, Washington-based CLEC known for its small to mid-sized enterprise (SME) data services. EarthLink paid $144 million for New Edge, reports Telephony.
The move is part of EarthLink’s plan to become “a total communications company,” said president and CEO Garry Betty. “We will provide voice, data, wired and wireless services. We plan to provide auxiliary services as well including safety and security, Web hosting and technical support for consumers.”
Meanwhile, the FCC recently approved a Linksys branded wireless adapter for EarthLink (right).
The MWA200 will be based on the 802.11b/g standards and most likely will be distributed by EarthLink as optional network hardware for its customers and looks like it will be targeted at metro-wide applications.
The MWA200 is being called a "High-Power Metro Wireless Internet Adapter" because it converts Ethernet interfaces on laptops and PCs to wireless bridges, connecting to municipal wireless.
Other centrally managed muni networking approaches include:
- NuTel plans to franchise municipal wireless with existing ISPs. The company will handle the backend—accounts and support—while the local firm will own the customer. The plan is to organize a separate company in each community with Nutel as the managing partner. NuTel will handle bringing in broadband and mounting gear; they’ll use SkyPilot equipment. They want partners who are qualified to handle truck rolls and are looking to partner with entrepreneurs in small and medium sized communities.
- Intelsat, through Ampiage and CSI, delivers wholesale video, voice and data services to retail providers across the United States. Ampiage distributes MPEG-4 programming via Intelsat while local ISPs, Telcos and MSOs distribute "triple play" programming via DSL, fiber, cable or broadband wireless to residential subscribers across North America.
- Sputnik, the low-cost WiFi management system that runs on a Linksys WRT-54g router (and other Sputnik platforms), is putting their management software inside the popular Linksys access point via DD-WRT open-source firmware which now includes Sputnik Agent software.
DD-WRT-powered Wi-Fi access points now plug-n-play into Sputnik networks. Sputnik's David LaDuke credits Sebastian Gottschall (Brainslayer) of DD-WRT, for adding adding "Cisco-class" features to affordable wireless access points. Sputnik provides centralized authentication and web-based management.
- AnchorFree Wireless provides popular shopping districts with free wireless Internet (Wi-Fi) access in San Francisco and Palo Alto. Currently, consumers can access the Internet free of charge in over 400 restaurants, shops and cafes across 6 Wi-Fi Hotzones. They were one of the bidders for San Francisco's city-wide cloud.
- Boingo Wireless and Birdstep Technology have a a software licensing agreement that will make it easier for cellular operators to offer an integrated Wi-Fi/3G service. Birdstep will integrate Boingo software development kit (SDK) into its Wi-Fi/WAN Access Connection Manager.
Boingo will use Birdstep's WAN Access Connection Engine SDK to integrate GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, 1xRTT and EV-DO network connection capabilities into Boingo Software for accessing public Wi-Fi hot spots. Boingo claims more than 22,000 Wi-Fi hot spots globally including 188 airports and 4,300 hotels use their connection software.
- The Fon hotspot network provides members with free software that turns their Wi-Fi routers into thin clients. The software, written in Linux, works on the popular WRT54GS and lets operators set how much time they’re willing to share and detect how much bandwidth is available, configuring the router for use as a hotspot accordingly. Fon does the centralized authentication, authorization and accounting functions.
- M2Z, a company funded by venture capitalists, hopes to launch a free nationwide broadband wireless network. They want to use the simplex part of the AWS spectrum (from 2155Mhz to 2175 Mhz). M2Z argues the 20 MHz of bandwidth would lay fallow for years since they're not paired with other airwaves. M2Z, which stands for "Move the cost of data transport to Zero," points to several the giving spectrum to broadcasters as a precident. It could also dovetail nicely with MVP's satellite/cellular repeaters and Modeo's DVB-H mobile television, which also use the 1.7GHz band. Triple play.
The Association For Community Networking and CivicSpace has developed their own community LAN package. Here's a list of applications and features with links to handbook pages. CivicSpace says it features a flexible and powerful Content Management System (CMS) capable of running all kinds of websites. It comes with a WYSIWIG editor and it is said to be simple to use. Google's Web Toolkit is said to make writing AJAX powered dynamic web applications easy.
 My buddy John Cooper, who consults with cities on muni-wireless and runs Metronet IQ as well as Wiki Metronet and Metro Nano, believes municipal wireless is weighed down with too much bureaucracy. Multi-year planning studies and RFPs, in his opinion, take too much time and money.
He says the time has come for entrepreneurs to take charge and move out.
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