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More is Not Merrier

Admittedly, Wi Fi technology now commonly associated with cordless phones, is still generally regarded as a mixed bag in the industry. That is, one often takes the good with the bad, with the good being the flexible connection and the bad being the difficulty in finding suitable access points that can support it.

In Riverside, California though, it seems that the public has a pretty clear-cut take on the technology. The airwaves in the area seem to be a wee bit tighter on space these days.

Last July 9, on a Monday, the city decided to launch its municipal wireless network. The system serves to deliver Internet services to residents living in more than three square miles of the downtown area. The service, of course, incurs no cost for the user. The wireless service provider, MetroFi, that put its resources together with the AT&T to construct and have the network up and running, states that the service provides downloads that can go up to 512-kbps speeds for each and every resident in the area.

One may think only good news can come of it. However, for a number of those who inhabit the main city of the inland empire, the free service makes life a teensy bit harder, not easier. The network touted to offer free services simply adds one more source of interference into a pot that’s just about ready to boil and topple over.

This is to say that the problem with the wireless spectrum in the area primarily involves one fact: lack of ample space in the continuum. There is, essentially, not enough space to allow this technology to run with the effectiveness as well as convenience that the municipal had envisioned when they decided to open the network.

MetroFi has decreed the installation of 25 to 30 wirelesss nodes per square mile so as to cover the entire downtown Riverside area. In this regard, one observes that wireless signals operating along the Wi-Fi band of 2.4 GHz—which is the most commonly used—are scattered all over by the buildings as well as tress. This reduces the strength of the signal to a significantly lesser degree. When a signal is weak, it has, in turn, less chances of causing interference. However, though this may be the case, MetroFi’s could seriously result into a number of disadvantages for residents in the area, and for other wireless networks that are located nearby.

Craig Mathias, who is the principal analyst as well as founder of wireless research firm Farpoint Group, shares that the scope of this particular Wi-Fi undertaking could serve to repel rather than appeal to the public as the network may unintentionally subject residential systems to a run of interference troubles, more so than usual. Mathias adds, “We have definitely seen a negative impact from these systems. But we just haven’t been able to quantify that impact.”

So far, studies have been inconclusive at best. Hence, though a number of Wi Fi detractors are clamoring for a shut-down of the system, since study results can go either way, no one, it seems, is going to be doing a victory dance any time soon.