 | About five years ago I watched a bucket truck pull up under this light pole and the guy went up and attached this radio device onto the arm of the light pole. The unit is powered right off the constant feed to the light’s photo voltaic switch. It took the guy less than 5 minutes to install. Note how the power plug is piggybacked by the old photo cell. When he came back down to ground level I asked the fellow what the purpose of the radio unit was, and he showed me a plan of the Town on which numerous hexagonal cells were show. In the center of each of those cells (1/4 mile radius) was to be one of these radio transceivers. The cells communicated downstream to the numerous homes in each cell, and they communicated upstream to two or three cell tower locations from which they connected to land telephone lines. The unit was able to handle dozens of simultaneous discrete individual connections with data rates up and down in the 300kbs range. |
Their intended purpose? Wireless multi-channel digital connection for internet and TV!
The system never came on line. So I telephoned the municipal light company and asked what was up. I was informed that the company had filed for bankruptcy. From what I could gather, it was a San Francisco company, and before they went into bankruptcy they had agreed to pay the Town $6.00 per month per unit for the location on the pole and the power. They had installed units in several communities across the country, but none of the systems ever came on line.
The first thing I thought – the SF company had been purchased by a subsidiary of a national cable or telephone company and intentionally bankrupted to avoid competition.
Anybody know anything about this?
A similar “last mile” radio transceiver system is in use in several US and overseas communities now but their use needs to be expanded. It is clearly one way to economically bring internet to communities where paying for a dsl connection is a strain on the budget to the point where the use of fast internet is deterred.
Why couldn’t ONE CLEVELAND connect its fiber to this type of RF transceiver mesh net to bring the digital highway deep into the community?
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