The march of municipal WiFi comes to El Paso.
Downtown El Paso soon will be home to a free wireless Internet network. City and county officials say the WiFi network, which will also be available in parts of South El Paso, should be up and running in about 6 months. When it is complete, the network is expected to provide free Internet access to one of the poorest areas in the country, an El Paso neighborhood known as El Segundo Barrio. The project is being paid for by the city and county of El Paso, along with the city’s housing authority and the El Paso Independent School District.
More on the project is here.
“This is going to be a great public service project,” said Peter Cooper, chief technology officer for El Paso County. “We are making sure the signal will be strong enough to work inside every home and building in the area. We’ve tested it, and the connection is faster than dial-up and about as fast as cable.”
The Digital El Paso Project will give WiFi Internet access throughout the area by using 36 transmitters in the area that is bordered by the Border Highway and San Antonio Street. The project is being coordinated by the county in partnership with the city, El Paso Independent School District and the Housing Authority.
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The El Paso project, which was initiated by a $10,000 feasibility study by Intel, was approved by the Commissioners Court. The other governmental agencies that will help fund the setup must still approve their portion of the funding.
The city of El Paso is contributing $50,000, and the county, housing authority and school district are pitching in $25,000 each.
Anyone who wants to access the wireless network will have to register with the county. The county will maintain and administer the system.
The best part of the program, Cooper said, is that every building in the area will have a signal. The 36 wireless transmitters are being installed on light posts, and on top of City Hall, the County Courthouse, Aoy Elementary and the San Jacinto high-rise residential building.
“The biggest problem we had was making sure the signal would travel into the houses that are stucco and have wire in the walls,” Cooper said.
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John Pompay, public sector programmer for Intel, said from his office in Arizona that Intel’s reasoning for wanting to start the network in the Segundo Barrio and Downtown area was to help those who might need it.
“There are certain pockets of the population that are traditionally under-served,” Pompay said. “Those are the markets that we are trying to get into, while at the same time helping improve their education.”
Sounds like a worthwhile project. I wish them luck.
What is WiFi about really?
Once you leave HappyLand look at the other side of things, if it all lands in the wrong hands–those who don’t care about your privacy rights.
Think of this technology as two way, then add all those hundreds of databases. All of a sudden, everyone is walking/driving around with their complete databases observable by business and government for whatever interactions with you wanted, repeatedly, daily.
We have not yet stopped the overreaching by government and corporate surveillance, on our privacy rights. This adds to that problem.
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Oh, I forgot to add; they are already horrible at protecting our information. This would only make that problem much worse.
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