Washtenaw county wifi

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The U. National Economic Council said in a December announcement. They support struggling communities that seek to attract new industries. Sirbu, however, questioned whether the government would distribute funds to Wireless Washtenaw in its first round of awards. But by and large most of the town has an option. Contact AnnArbor. You can also follow him on Twitter. I should've settled and went for a smaller house and no yard for my kids to play in JUST so I can get wireless internet.

No matter that when I moved here I never thought that wireless internet from my home might be a necessity someday. I'm sorry, but it's comments like yours that make me glad I don't live in the city. Richard C: You could make a case to a rabid right winger hi for a dark FTTH network to be government owned, with competing private service providers leasing fibers which they then connect their electronics to. Once the fiber is in place there's little maintenance, less than roads.

It would also be very easy for startups or any remaining independent ISPs to lease fibers. Or for businesses to lease point-to-point fiber links to connect their buildings across the county.

It would make Washtenaw far more attractive to business in a way that actually makes economic and engineering sense. It would still be difficult to justify wiring up many rural sites, just as such sites aren't connected to city water. Fixed wireless probably makes more sense.

I believe the rates are higher than cable internet, and it required an expensive gadget to be installed. The problem that dooms Wireless Washtenaw is the same one that doomed Merit Network Inc's dialup service - the urban people didn't need it and rural people couldn't afford it. The public Traverse City wireless network was used as a comparison to Wireless Washtenaw - but at the time, the Traverse City network was aimed at tourists and some residents.

Making your tourist-trap community more appealing to tourists does make a certain kind of sense - but the Traverse City network didn't try to be everything to everyone, which is what Wireless Washtenaw tried to do.

If there is a need for internet access that isn't being satisfed commercially, and that need is sufficiently widespread, then a government funded solution seems reasonable.

Korea, Germany, Japan, Sweeden, etc. A government owned network that ran fiber to the house would not be a free-market solution. It would be better. And anethma to the Rabid Right Wing. However, the overall social benefits of the government running a network infrastructure for the county isn't as clear as it is for roads.

Anyone - on a lark - can use any of the government funded roads. Anyone, for whatever reason, can use a government funded road to travel somewhere within the county. However, a data network doesn't work that way. I don't see the county covered with RJ ports, much less WiFi access. From reading the comments it appears that broadband internet is rural areas is still a challenge.

Good dialog on how that might happen and what people are trying. Sounds like there is no clear solution yet. The more I think about it, point-to-point wireless to customers who can't get cable or DSL is the only business model that makes sense.

Forget cities, outside of volunteer efforts like Wireless Ypsi. Set up antenna towers on high ground as needed to get line-of-sight to customers, set up high-gain directional antennas and WiFi radios at customer sites and wire those into an otherwise standard home network.

Once you have that in place you can plug femtocells mini cell phone stations such as Sprint's Airave for routing cell photo traffic over the Internet into the home network, use VoIP services instead of landlines, etc. A small number of high-paying customers is considerably easier to manage than trying to be all things to all people.

I'm wired for cable and don't need their service. Tom Teague I don't think anybody who has posted here "from the city" thinks providing "cows and farmers" the Internet is a bad idea, its just a question of how to pay for it, given the private sector at the moment doesn't see a motive.

Back when a millage for a new jail failed it failed in part by an overwhelming rejection from "cows and farmers" who didn't chipping in for more jail room as their problem.

The reoccurring argument was that most of the crime was in the city and most of the criminals are from the city. In other words they were kind of watching out for themselves. Likewise there is an ongoing dilemma over the cost of supplying Sheriff Department deputies to cover outlying areas that don't pay for their own police department.

As a city dweller I chip in for two police departments but only one of them ever comes through my neighborhood. Careful - there may be a baby in the bathwater: It's not just a matter of faster internet service for farmers. The rural broadband initiative is seen as an equivalent to the Rural Electrification Administration. Except that rural electrification was intended for farmers, not sprawlers who preferred country living but otherwise had the same kinds of jobs as the nearby city folks.

And the argument about 'not being able to afford to live in the city' doesn't wash. You might have to settle for a smaller house with a smaller yard to live in or close to town, but that's all. You get more house and yard for the money out in the sticks, but you get less internet for the money there. Nobody said that a longer commute was the only possible trade off for choosing to live out in the country. It came in response to the reluctance of the traditional internet providers to make high-speed internet available for rural customers.

Whether the current business model is workable is another question, but we should give it some time to prove itself rather than discard the concept based on our citi-fied notions that cows don't need the internet. Without increases in the high tech skill base, Michigan will be unable to attract high-tech businesses that want to see the capability before they spend the money to locate here.

Fred: good point with respect to them currently covering areas that already have coverage. I don't pretend to know much about the whole situation. But I assume the problem is the lack of a rather expensive infrastructure to deliver a signal to the outlying areas of the county for a limited number of paying customers.

If thats the issue whats the solution? A tax payer subsidized building of the missing infrastructure? They are disappointed with the low number of current subscribers, but they ran the pilot and the service is only available in downtown Ann Arbor, downtown Saline, etc where there are other broadband choices.

There are many of us in rural areas that can't get anything except dial-up and we'd love the opportunity to subscribe to Wireless Washtenaw. I pay taxes, as well. Maybe my property taxes are lower than others but only because I can't afford a house in the city, therefore I moved to a more rural area. Only 7 miles outside of the city, mind you.

Some of the comments made just seem very snooty to me. I don't expect someone to pay for me to have high-speed access but it would be nice to see Wireless Washtenaw work. Because at the moment it doesn't appear to be economically practical for the private sector to service sparsely populated areas. The thought there is that the Government steps in and does what the private sector won't do because there is no profit to be had. The technology and competition moved a lot faster than the Wireless Wasthenaw business plan.

Comcast and DSL are doing a fine job of wiring the county, and where they are not the solution is for the home owners affected to make a small collective investment in a higher grade satellite connection, or a solar module repeating router network like the Wireless Ypsi technology to cover each other.

I donated a 3 foot 15 decibel outdoor antenna to a group just north of Ann Arbor to get their area covered. I have dealt with two of the early companies involved in this - IC. The other company had problems with everything they did, from the technology to support. Even if Wireless Washtenaw had got going, their customer support probably would have just as bad.

I think the time for this was six to eight years ago, not today when there are other options. How about tapping into the fiber that now runs along the Norfolk Southern railroad? They buried that fiber at least six years ago.

It runs east to west through the center of the whole county. Has it really come down to "city folk" against "country folk"?

Why should there be a trade off because I don't want to pay out the rear for housing? The trade off is I have a longer drive to places. That's where they get ya. Lastly, I believe that for virtually everybody in Washtenaw County a broadband card from Verizon or one of the other phone providers IS a viable option though, as RB has done, you may need to do some work with an external antenna, amplifier, etc, and may have to forgo high bandwidth services like streaming video--but those are the tradeoffs.

This is folly! It is not a right at least not yet to have access to high speed internet. There are plenty of options available to those who do not have access and they have all been mentioned here. If the project is not working, or, still having trouble getting started after so many years, then does McFarlane have another job?

Is this his only job duty? What is his salary and how is it being paid? What contracts are being draw up to pay several law firms large sums of money?

This is a job for the private sector. Maybe the county can finally determine why Comcast still has a monopoly in our area. Seems as though opening competition could enable other vendors to provide this service and improve upon the existing cable service. Thank you, Mr. Bomney, for a lengthy, well-informed article on a worthwhile subject. I look forward to more of these from AnnArbor. The most recent outage reports and issues originated from Ann Arbor , Ypsilanti and Saline.

Gleason4plus5 Xfinity Weird too since I called soon after he died to notify them. Xfinity decides to randomly restart, right in the middle of the North London Derby, and then when it comes back on, Arsenal scored again. So Comcast can't or won't tell us if this new outage is going to be for hours or days. I couldn't even get to a person. I cannot miss another day of work this is ridiculous. Pretty special that Xfinity cannot provide an outage update for four days after the power has been back up for 2.

Gaht damn Xfinity, service our area!! How can a product so inadequate cost so damn much? Tochinoshin33 Sorry Mr Nyce and we have Comcast too, but what's been going on? You just never know with this company, but I've contacted them to give me credit for downtime since it's their fault.

Well the internet's not back yet but I have been saved by myself from 19 days ago.