Nickname: Impressed in Alaska

Review: Kudos to Wireless Delta Solutions International for making the breakthrough in finally putting inexpensive Wireless in Norwich, Oxford, and Sherburne New York with 13460.biz, 13815.biz, and 13830.biz.

Date reviewed: Oct 2, 2006 8:01 PM

Nickname: rhoskins

Review: The problem with offering free Wi-Fi services is that someone still needs to pay for the Internet bandwidth to send and receive traffic from the free service. A T1 circuit provides a full duplex connection at 1.5Mbps. Divide that by 300Kbps and you get enough bandwidth for 5 simultaneous users. A typical price for a T1 circuit is $500 a month. So if 5 people eat up a T1, calculate what it will take to feed 100,000 users. Streaming video and music clips hogs a lot of bandwidth. With data services latency isnt that big of an issue, but when Wi-Fi cell phones become as popular as Blackberries are today, bandwidth will become a huge expense. This is the reason cell phone carriers are losing a lot of sleep. The maximum their radios will ever be able to do is 10 Mbps with the HSPDA service. The lowest speed for Wi-Fi is 11 Mbps. The highest speed now is 54 Mbps. The only company that can afford this model is Google. Google has eroded the value of advertising for everyone except them.

Date reviewed: May 31, 2006 12:29 PM

Nickname: mark

Review: It's very sad to see that the USA has dropped to a shocking No. 12 in the world in terms of household broadband access. But it's equally sad that this issue must be tackled by a patchwork of assorted and seemingly desperate state initiatives understandably stymied by existing service providers. Like so many other areas, the USA is falling behind (disaster preparedness, education, health care, etc.). This problem is one that can be tackled only by national vision and leadership. And unfortunately, with our current political system focused almost exclusively on acquiring and retaining power and rewarding corporate entities that support the system, we're jeopardizing all the historic potential of our nation. We may never get that visionary leadership until somehow enough American voters wake up to fixing this inherent structural political problem before it is too late.

Date reviewed: May 22, 2006 11:54 PM

Nickname: solomonrex

Review: The computer component of the "digital divide" isn't too bad. There are lots of old and used computers kicking around that can be pressed into service for basic Web surfing. I think the issue is silly, really. Most libraries offer free access to computers with broadband access.

Date reviewed: May 17, 2006 6:28 PM

Nickname: Shailesh

Review: The Wi-Fi broadband service should be treated differently than traditional landline broadband service. Wi-Fi service enables different kind of uses, for e.g. using laptop to work anywhere (park, other office, cafe etc...). This is similar to cell service vs. landline service. In my opinion, no one is offering Wi-Fi service throughout the city, what Verizon offers is broadband on its cell network, not using 802.11 standard.

Date reviewed: May 17, 2006 11:26 AM