Houston thinking about using WiFi parking meters for citywide wireless network

So the city of Houston has this crazy idea: as long as they're adding WiFi to the city's parking meters for verifiying credit card info (yes, that means no more fishing for quarters), why not open up the WiFi network so that the general public can get online, too? As long you're spending money on building out all the infrastructure, sorta makes sense to add a citywide wireless network, right? Right now the city is in the process of selecting a manufacturer for the new parking meters, and once that's completed they're going to start looking at the feasibility of creating a public WiFi network and figuring out how they'd add coverage for the parts of town where there aren't parking meters.

[Thanks, Marc]

[Waseem @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

thats awesome.. i wish cleveland would do something cool like that.

[Alex Marshall @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I've always wondered why they don't put WiFi equipment in lampposts.

Each lamppost could then connect to each other to provide a 'mesh', whilst a few lampposts are connected to a backbone (possibly via their electric lines). The other lampposts connect to the net or council/city networks via these node lampposts.

Even if it's only installed in 20-25% of lampposts, thats definately enough to ensure decent coverage of most towns and cities.

This also provides added benefits of providing wireless CCTV connections (I think theres a council somewhere in England trialing this), VoIP, position monitoring (eg. of council vehicles), not to mention if the connection was reliable then online radio in vehicles becomes a possibility.

Oh, it could also be used to activate the lampposts and actively report when the light has fused.

[Nick Vega @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Ya... too bad the Texas government voted against public WiFi and W's pulling his strings there to help fight public WiFi. They are getting kickbacks from the cellphone industry and lobbyists to keep it out.

[Chris Kalan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I think it is definitely a great start to installing local (soon to be national) WiFi. It makes sense for cities to put the receivers in something that is everywhere, such as power lines, or streetlights (as suggested above), perhaps underground in man holes because they would be easily serviceable. They should be hidden from public view as to prevent vandalism. I know of transmitters / extenders that send signal out at least 10 km, so on major highways, they could be spread very far apart. Hrmmm....I wonder what kind of internet connection you would need to provide access for a city...I've never heard of a T3(thousand) connection. lol.

[zed @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Wow, I am still in shock because one would pay with a CC for parking! Gotta run in for 15 minutes and pay 25c on my MasterCard! LOL

[Ryan Waddell @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

That's a great idea. Toronto's parking meters already have wifi (I think, at least they have wee little antennae) so it would be awesome if they opened it up to us! But I'm guessing their wifi network doesn't have quite the bandwidth that would be eaten up by all the geeks in this city :)

[Phil @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

>>I've always wondered why they don't put WiFi equipment in lampposts.

Each lamppost could then connect to each other to provide a 'mesh', whilst a few lampposts are connected to a backbone (possibly via their electric lines). The other lampposts connect to the net or council/city networks via these node lampposts.<<

In fact, that's exactly what is going on in Dayton. The entire downtown area is now covered by a privately-built "free" (supported by advertising) WiFi, mounted mostly on light poles. Do a search on "Dayton Harborlink".

[dp @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

companies have tried to do wifi on streetlights, but even in a smaller city it's a mutli-million dollar investment with very little chance of making a serious return on that without spending even more on marketing and shit.

[ss4vegito7 @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

I feel that wifi is over rated and feel that a faster, cheaper, and more vast reaching technology can be created.

[happy gilmore @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

i used to live in houston & i had an ez-tag on my car for paying tolls on the beltway & other paid toll roads. it would automatically debit the toll from my checking account/credit card/whatever.

they could just adapt the same technology. shit, it could pick up my car going through the toll gates at 125mph.

[iceberg @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Boys, how do you spell boondoggle?
Thats right-
H - O -U - S - T - O - N !

[base2wave @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

Ok, I've lived in Houston my entire life. and from this I know the city government gets these half-cocked ideas in their head to blow my precious tax dollar for years to come, and often are abandonded shortly there after. If this does come to fruition, it won't work right, cost a crapload of cash, and probalby interfere with legit WiFi networks that are scattered about the city. And B) I sure as hell don't trust the city to secure the transmission of credit card info for the parking meters effectively, leaving this a HUGE liability. On a personal note, there's a damn parking meter downstairs right now that gives you 3 minutes for a quarter, I surely don't need that sort of hit on my account, thankyouverymuch.

[Samuel Lago @ Dec 19th 2005 12:17AM]

What about Britain, It be good here too!