Cities and Municipalities for Wireless Mesh Networks

With wireless mesh networks, cities can connect citizens and public services over a widespread high-speed wireless connection.A growing number of downtown areas are installing public WiFi hotspots. Mesh networks allow cities to inexpensively and simply link all those hotspots together to cover the entire municipality.

Some advantages of municipal mesh networks: Commuters can check their e-mail on the train, in the park, at a restaurant.Public works officials can monitor the diagnostics of the city's power and water supply by installing wireless nodes in water treatment facilities, sewers and generators. There's no need to dig trenches to run cables.Public safety and emergency workers can access secure virtual networks within the larger network to keep communication lines open, even when regular phone or cellular service is down. With mesh nodes mounted on streetlights and stop lights, police and firefighters can remain connected to the network, even while moving.

According to a report by MuniWireless.com in March 2007, 81 U.S. cities have already installed citywide or region-wide municipal wireless networks and 164 more are actively building such networks. The report also says that 38 U.S. cities already have municipal wireless networks for the exclusive use of public safety and city employees.

Not all existing municipal wireless networks are mesh networks, however. Some are powered by a technology called WiMAX which has the ability to broadcast signals over large distances using powerful microwave transmissions. Other municipal networks use a combination of mesh, WiMAX and others.Developing CountriesWireless mesh networks are useful in countries without a widespread wired infrastructure, such as telephone service or even electricity. Solar-powered nodes can be connected to one cellular or satellite Internet connection, which could keep a whole village online.

October 27, 2011

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