Silicon Valley locale pursuing wireless network options
Palo Alto, California, one of Silicon Valley’s most notable locales and home of tech biggies including Agilent Technologies, Hewlett-Packard, and Facebook, is seeking input as to whether a citywide wireless network will benefit its residents.
Local members of the Silicon Valley Regional Interoperability Project is set to confer with Craig Settles, one of the leading experts in muni WiFi issues, and will gauge his input as to how the city should proceed with this project, if at all.
One of the issues that will be discussed is whether Palo Alto should be part of the Wireless Silicon Valley project or go off on its own. It goes without saying that city officials will have to determine, after much analysis, if it makes economic and usability sense to develop its own wireless network or join in on the regional one.
Since Palo Alto is one of the more high-profile tech communities in California, if not the U.S., this situation will be one to watch over the next few weeks and months. Despite some criticism, WiFi networks are still proliferating at a healthy rate.
Since the regional network seems to be progressing quite nicely and will boast support from cities of all shapes and sizes within Silicon Valley, it wouldn’t be a surprise for Palo Alto to get on-board, but they could look to stand out from the pack by establishing their own network. My guess is they will join the regional project and go independent within two years.
July 27th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
They will probably have to go independent since they will be the heaviest user of this network.
Once you get spoiled with wifi, there’s no turning back.