Ann Arbor News story via Arbor Update: "The program known as Wireless Washtenaw has been implemented in three areas: downtown Ann Arbor, downtown Saline and downtown Manchester. No additional installations have been made while 20/20 Communications, the company working with the county, applies for a $14 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and tries to line up other funding."
"Previously, 20/20 said it would begin installing equipment in rural areas in March and April 2007 and have the entire county equipped by the end of the year.
"Bob Wolff, president of 20/20, said acquiring the $20 million it needs for the project has been more difficult than anticipated. "We really thought that being as hot as wireless efforts are ... we thought there would be more people stepping up to the plate to fund this,'' Wolff said. But that's not been the case, he said."
"Potential funders such as venture capitalists have expressed concerns about the technology getting too old too quickly, Wolff said. He also said questions were raised about the project being managed by a small, local company instead of a national company."
"Getting people to sign up and pay for the high-speed service - a lower-speed service is free - could help demonstrate to potential funders that 20/20 has a business model that works, company officials said."
"Meanwhile, some residents like Freedom Township's Ray Berg drive into town to avoid using the slow dial-up service at their homes. He drives to the Manchester Public Library to use the Internet."
"No taxpayer money is being used to construct, operate or maintain the wireless network, said Washtenaw County Deputy Administrator David Behen."
Would the $14 million USDA loan consist of taxpayer money?
More from the news story:
"In the areas where equipment is installed, about 450 people have signed up for the free, low-speed service, while 73 have signed up for the paid, higher-speed service, Skratek said."
I think Ann Arbor, Saline, and Manchester combined is just slightly bigger population-wise than what those numbers are indicating.
From Arbor Update:
"Want to help get the project moving? The project is applying for a USDA loan, and for that they need a survey of potential users."
A couple other, somewhat related stories from the Toledo Wi-Fi Debate page:
Jul 19, 2007 WiMax goes mainstream: Sprint, Clearwire to build national network
"This deal has a lot of potential to take WiMax mainstream. Here’s a look at the winners:"
"Intel: The chip giant has been a big backer of WiMax and has plans to embed the technology into its chips just like it did for Wi-Fi. Now it has a network to make WiMax chips more of a must have. Intel plans to embed WiMax on its chips by the end of 2008."
"Consumers: You get another wireless access network to use that’ll be faster. With any luck that’ll help pricing on all fronts. Cusick estimates that pricing for the WiMax network will have a ceiling of $60 a month given 3G competition."
Jul 27, 2007 Google, Sprint to team up on WiMax
"Google and Sprint Nextel announced Thursday that they will team up to develop a portal to let consumers search the Internet and mingle on social networks using mobile devices that work on a new, ultrafast WiMax network."
"Sprint announced plans in August to invest up to $3 billion in the new WiMax network. WiMax has a range of up to 10 miles and can transfer data at speeds similar to cable and DSL. Sprint said its new network should offer speeds of up to 4 megabytes per second - more than twice as fast as the average broadband connection in California."
Here's a report from April 2007 titled US Falls to 25th in Broadband Penetration Worldwide.
And as the BuzzMachine points out:
"[U.S.] broadband access costs, on average, 12 times more than Japan’s and 7 times more than South Koreas, yet Japan’s is 12 times faster than ours and Korea’s 9.5 times faster."
Japan and South Korea must have a good agriculture industry to support all that superior technology.
created Jul 27, 2007