Unwired PDX Watch seeks MetroFi insiders for explanation
Posted by Russell Senior on 25 June 2008For the last year or so, in furtherance of the educational mission of the Personal Telco Project as well as to satisfy our own curiosities, we have been seeking insights and explanations of some of the engineering decisions made by MetroFi. We requested speakers for the Personal Telco Project’s monthly meetings from MetroFi via Denise Graab. Regrettably, despite some promises, we never got any followup, perhaps because Denise left the company last autumn. We remain interested in understanding what went right, what went wrong, and the perspective of the network engineers at MetroFi. We had the good fortune to have an extended conversation with technical people from SkyPilot Networks shortly after our Proof of Concept study, and we would certainly welcome similar interactions with those at (or formerly at) MetroFi. If anyone is willing to share their experience and perspective, please get in touch with us and perhaps we can set something up. Thanks!
Our Methods to Appear at AccessNets
Posted by Caleb Phillips on 21 June 2008Research based on the performance and coverage testing methods developed for our testing of the MetroFi Proof-of-Concept network in Portland has been accepted for publication at AccessNets 2008 which will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada in October. The paper is titled “Robust Coverage and Performance Testing for Large-Area Wireless Networks” and is co-authored with professors Dirk Grunwald and Douglas Sicker at the University of Colorado at Boulder. We’ll post a copy of the final camera-ready manuscript here, as soon as it is ready (presumably sometime in July).
MetroFi schedules Portland shutoff for June 30
Posted by Russell Senior on 20 June 2008The Portland Business Journal, Associated Press and the Oregonian are reporting that, according to officials at the City of Portland, MetroFi plans to turn off their Portland network on June 30th. The equipment is to be removed during the month of July.
Meanwhile, the Personal Telco Project is reminding people that there are still an amazing number of wifi networks in Portland (about 100 times what MetroFi was ever going to deploy), and that ordinary citizens and businesses can help make ubiquitous free wifi a reality by participating in its provision.