What are Wi-Fi and WiMAX?
WiFi stands for "wireless fidelity." In 1997, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) introduced a set of standards for wireless local-area networks designated "802.11." 802.11 networking uses Ethernet protocol, is only effective over distances of a few hundred feet, and the spectrum is unlicensed. That means there can be interference on the network. Security has been a weak point as well, as others can "listen in" to unprotected wireless signals. However, Wi-Fi has one major selling point that has pushed its adoption regardless of its shortcomings: low cost. A Wi-Fi access point can be purchased for less than $50, according to presenters at a recent wireless conference in Monterey, Calif., and so Wi-Fi access "hot spots" are being set up in homes, coffee shops and other businesses. The technology has advanced quickly, with newer versions of 802.11 (designated 11a, 11b etc.) rolling out. One of the more promising of these protocols is 802.16, also called WiMAX. A WiMAX signal, emanating from a tower, can reach a radius of three to five miles, making it a possible solution for "last mile" Internet connectivity coverage for cities and counties.
Matt Stone is a councilman for the city of Warner Robins, Georgia. He's also chairman and co-founder of the Houston County Wireless Committee, a group made up of business and community leaders working with Intel and other companies to bring in new high-speed wireless Internet access to Houston County.
Testing a Wireless Network
Houston County's interest in WiMAX began last August when Intel deployed a Wi-Fi network in several local high schools. Intel's education strategist gave a presentation on education and the public sector. "He talked a little bit about the wireless 802.16 standard commonly referred to as WiMAX," said Stone. "There were some folks in the audience, some state legislators, and we left the meeting excited about this new technology." Stone said the group followed up. "A small nucleus of us made the decision that we wanted to bring this to our community, to put the infrastructure in place so that we could become one of the first fully mobile counties in America."
The county brought in Siemens Business Services to do a study to look at the different business models and then deployed a test network using Alvarion equipment.
"We deployed a network here to make sure it would work with our pine trees, our topography, and using pre-WiMAX equipment, we sent a signal 11.8 miles at 6.8 Megs of throughput, which was tremendous for the technology that we were using."
Stone said that prior to learning about wireless technology, the extent of his technical knowledge was using the Internet to check e-mail. "So I've learned a whole lot about standards, about wireless, frequencies, etc. in the past year. I'm still not very technical, but I'm learning." Stone said that the study was successful, and that Siemens wrote a report about it.
Private Investment or Cooperative Wholesale?
The next step for the county is to select a business model, obtain funding and roll out the network countywide. But the business model and funding have required some work, said Stone. "The first model was the private investment model, where you've got a group of investors that form a consortium, and fill different parts of the value chain. Somebody does back office, somebody else does support, etc. Folks make money and provide the service, and everyone is happy. We do have some private investors in the county in the SE Region who are interested in our project and in investing in it. So that could work for us.
"The second model I think is much more compelling, and that's called the cooperative wholesale model. It involves the local governments forming a non-profit agency, or a government authority, to deploy the network using tax dollars. The nonprofit would then sell monthly T-1 service to the governments, quasi-governments, non-profits, at cost -- no profit involved.
"This non-profit would then wholesale excess capacity to private companies like telcos and wireless ISPs who would then retail it to businesses and residences, and promote competition ... And so it lets government insource telecomm needs and then sell the excess to the private market.
"We're kind of a conservative county," said Stone, "so there have been some hiccups in the community about investing public money, and we're trying to build some consensus, and move forward in an appropriate manner. We're in the process of deciding which business model we want to go with.
Economic Development Plus
Stone said that from the outset, the idea was that wireless broadband would help the county with economic development. Businesses want "the latest and greatest" he explained, and wireless infrastructure would deliver that. It began with education, he said, and the network would help students better integrate and understand technology.
But Stone attended a conference in the San Francisco area recently on wireless broadband for public safety and was surprised at the multitude of advantages for local government. "You can have laptops in all of your squad cars that are connected to broadband at DSL type speeds that could access the amber alert, information databases, homeland security information, all those kinds of things, in realtime. You can use video and stream that back over your wireless network to have realtime review of what's happening at the scene by your supervisors. You can track an RFID tag on your fire suits, and when they go into a building you know where everyone is and that they are OK.
"This morning I watched some of our employees getting out of a truck to look at a gas meter, and see how much gas a resident has used. Wireless technology can start to replace all of that and make that work much more efficiently. And it just helps stop the widening of the digital divide, because wireless is just inherently so much less expensive to deploy. Based on Alvarion's MSRP prices, said we could install two towers that would cover the entire county at a capital expense of $360,000, for a county of 386 square miles. The numbers are mind-boggling, how inexpensive it is."
Stone said that installing a wireless network is just the beginning. "The power comes because wireless is an enabler of e-government, of better public service, better public safety, and for more citizen use of the Internet, and that's what makes our communities better."
Unregulated Spectrum?
Stone said that in spite of using unlicensed spectrum, interference and security have not been a problem. "We are home to Robins Air Force Base, the largest industrial complex in the state, with 22,000 employees. They have all kinds of signals, so that was one of our concerns, we wanted to deploy this test network, so we were going to do it in the 598 Gigahertz part of the spectrum, so if we do that, what's that going to do to the radar on the base? So we went out and talked to them on the base, and got a sense of the interference issues, and to our surprise, there were absolutely no interference issues with the base. There is a small risk that from time to time, somebody can mess with your network, and jam things, and interfere, but that simply doesn't seem to be happening."
Stone said that during his recent trip to California he did some research on the issue. "We were out in San Mateo and their Police Department has deployed about three square miles of Wi-Fi network, and got laptops in the police cars, that's all unlicensed unregulated spectrum and they've been doing it for a year and a half with great success. So there's really not much of an issue there."
San Mateo's security is likewise fine, said Stone. "The police lieutenant in San Mateo county who spoke at this conference and led the deployment, said that he feels that their Wi-Fi network is more secure than their wired network. A lot of the technology that's enterprise-class already comes with built-in encryption, Alvarion uses an encryption standard that has been approved by the federal government, I don't know much about security, but I figure if it's good enough for the feds its good enough for all of us."
Cautions
Stone said that if he were doing it over again, he'd talk more about the applications instead of the technology. "We didn't do a good enough job of talking about the applications. We got very focused on wireless technology, WiMAX, all about the network. We never really gave a lot of thought to how does this start to change the way we do business. That would be the first thing I would caution about. Intel, our biggest partner now, has developed a new Digital Cities initiative, working to package an off-the-shelf product, where mayors, city and county leaders can go to Intel and say 'this is our community, here are the problems we have, what are the solutions that wireless can enable?'"
However, in spite of that, Stone says that local government support has been excellent. "We have two other cities in the county. Warner Robins has about 52,000 citizens, Perry has about 7,000 and Centerville about 3,000, with another 60,000 or so in the unincorporated areas. All four of our governments -- the county and three cities -- have passed unanimous resolutions of support for the project."
By the end of July, Stone would like to see a business model selected and by the end of the year have a system rolled out.
