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June 30, 2006

Peek at the future: Net access anywhere in R.I. -- on the go and in the woods

Multimedia citizen journalism: I was in the newsroom late putting together a traditional portal about Newport on Wednesday, June 21 while the folks driving the RI-WINS project -- seamless mobile statewide wireless broadband Net access wherever you might go -- were speaking around the corner at AS220.

Consequently I missed the opportunity to report and blog the RI-WINS Town Hall -- an airing of perhaps the most innovative project ever to fly under the radar anywhere.

Fortunately, Providence Geeks made a video of the event (QuickTime, or plays in RealPlayer for me) and Brian Jepson -- the moderator of the panel -- blogged it in two parts on that site.

Part one is a summary of the presentations by Bob Panoff, RI-WINS Program Director, Donald Stanford, Chair of the Business Innovation Factory and President of Stanford Scientific, and Tracy Emerton Williams, Rhode Island’s Chief Information Officer.

Part two is a transcript of the Q&A session that followed. Here's the nut:

(WIMAX is Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access. Unlike Wi-Fi, whose range can be measured in feet, WIMAX "provides high-throughput broadband connections over long distances.")

What will the hardware look like from a consumer viewpoint? Users with a WiMAX card in their laptop? A WiMAX enabled home router that creates a Wi-Fi cloud?

Bob answered that there’s no definite answer on this, but he thinks we are moving toward a multi-protocol world (cell, Wi-Fi, WiMAX) with seamless hand-off when roaming between clouds of wireless.

As a followup to the last question, what sort of equipment should contest entrants plan on using for their N-GEN Wireless World contest entries?

In response, Bob pulled a Navini WiMAX PC Card out of his pocket :-) For the immediate future, the network is based on pre-WiMAX technology. As an aside, RI-WINS initially considered Wi-Fi, but it would have taken 9,000 access points! With WiMAX, it will only take 120 base stations (I’d love to see that on a Google map!). However, Wi-Fi hotspots will play a part. Don Stanford pointed out that WiMAX is being widely touted as an alternative to 3G/4G, but that the infrastructure is very affordable and flexible.

And yes, Brian notes, you'll hear in the video that they are working with a community in RI to provide access to citizens who can't afford access. Universal access (and computer literacy!) are essential to participating in the wired environment we are about to live in.

In an email exchange that followed, Brian and I goofed a bit about the scarcity of Web access in the woods. This niche is an example of the sort of applications the project is inviting innovators to develop.

It's a great package -- project insiders, intelligent questions, good explanations, primary sources, well-documented. It would be well worth your time this weekend to go to the Geeks site and take a look at our future.

Free time: I'm heading to Boston in a few minutes to be part of a blogging panel at the National Society of Newspaper Columnists' annual convention. After that, I'll be on vacation for two weeks. I'll be playing with a new camera, a new laptop, and will finally have time to think. Expect a different sort of blogging, after I get some much-needed sleep.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:45 AM | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Hanna in Cleveland on July 2, 2006 9:53 AM