It doesn't come easy wrote to mention the announcement that Madison, Wisconsin will soon be home to the newest Municipal Wi-Fi network. From the article: "'I made a commitment in 2004 to bring Wi-Fi to Madison,' said Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz in a statement. 'This is an important new service for Madison residents and businesses.' The Madison network will be rolled out at no cost to the city and the providers have secured initial funding from service agreements from ISPs. The initial phase of the Madison network will cover users in the downtown region of the city with plans to later cover the entire city." I love my town. Zombies and Wi-Fi. What more could you want?Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='wireless';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; Madison Rolling Out City-Wide Wi-Fi Log in/Create an Account | Top | 101 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 101 comments 0: 93 comments 1: 65 comments 2: 41 comments 3: 11 comments 4: 5 comments 5: 1 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Thanks Zombie Lurch! (Score:3, Funny) by conJunk (779958) on Sunday October 23, @08:30PM (#13860600) Well, it looks like yesterday's zombie lurch [slashdot.org] accomplished something for the city! [ Reply to ThisBrains! by fm6 (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:17PM Windows (Score:1, Funny) by cachimaster (127194) on Sunday October 23, @08:34PM (#13860612) (http://slashdot.org/none) Now even the Windows boxes will turn into zombies [ Reply to ThisRe:Windows by LordMaxxon (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @10:25PM Hum... (Score:3, Funny) by Chickenofbristol55 (884806) on Sunday October 23, @08:37PM (#13860624) I could just imagine this scene.Brainnnnssss......Brainnnnsss.... Oh my god run for your lives! ZOMBIES.... Wait, what are they doing now? I think they are reading their e-mails, whooo... thank god we are safe for now. [ Reply to This Done right for once, I think. (Score:5, Insightful) by Ironsides (739422) on Sunday October 23, @08:41PM (#13860636) (Last Journal: Monday May 09, @05:20PM) The Madison network will be rolled out at no cost to the city and the providers have secured initial funding from service agreements from ISPs. Hmmm... No tax dollars being used, sounds good to me. How are they getting funding? A subscription fee or what? [ Reply to ThisRe:Done right for once, I think. by Bastian (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @08:51PM Re:Done right for once, I think. (Score:4, Interesting) by Ironsides (739422) on Sunday October 23, @09:04PM (#13860744) (Last Journal: Monday May 09, @05:20PM) Any ideas on if they are capping download speeds, blocking ports, or max download per month? Is this going to be an always on 100k speed or what? This probably won't be for anyone beyond the Joe Sixpack user of email, IM and websurfing. I'm pretty sure no one downloading a linux distro over bittorrent isn't going to be using this. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Done right for once, I think. by Bastian (Score:3) Sunday October 23, @10:36PMRe:Done right for once, I think. by MacDork (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @11:29PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Done right for once, I think. by SeventyBang (Score:3) Sunday October 23, @10:35PMRe:Done right for once, I think. by utnow (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @10:16PMprivate fire fighting by zogger (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @11:47PMRe:private fire fighting by Bastian (Score:2) Monday October 24, @12:24AMRe:Done right for once, I think. by Bastian (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:22PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Milwaukee To Get Better Treatment (Score:3, Interesting) by SEGT (880610) on Sunday October 23, @08:42PM (#13860642) Midwest Fiber Networks is going to build a wifi system for the city at no cost to tax payers. Once the system is up they will rent it out to various service providers who can then charge whatever fees for access they wish. More information found here [fcw.com]. [ Reply to ThisRe:Milwaukee To Get Better Treatment by SEGT (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @08:45PM What more could you want? (Score:1) by Kohath (38547) on Sunday October 23, @08:51PM (#13860678) I love my town. Zombies and Wi-Fi. What more could you want?Maybe if winter wasn't 8 months each year? [ Reply to ThisRe:What more could you want? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @09:23PMRe:What more could you want? by Vskye (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @11:14PMRe:What more could you want? by Kohath (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @11:17PM Madison (Score:2) by magicsquid (85985) on Sunday October 23, @08:55PM (#13860700) (http://home.comcast.net/~t_van) Slashdot. All about Madison, all the time! [ Reply to ThisRe:Madison by Drathus (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @09:53PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Wired Zombies (Score:1) by Harmonious Botch (921977) on Sunday October 23, @08:59PM (#13860720) Put a server chip in each of them. Then we can play zombie wars. [ Reply to This Comming to a city near YOU (Score:2, Funny) by u2pa (871932) on Sunday October 23, @09:00PM (#13860726) (Last Journal: Monday September 26, @08:59PM) .... i wish :/(untill then i will just have to stick with my $2 a month, 100mbit internet) [ Reply to ThisRe:Comming to a city near YOU by u2pa (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @09:05PM Good news (Score:4, Insightful) by cdrguru (88047) on Sunday October 23, @09:09PM (#13860768) (http://www.infinadyne.com/) This is perhaps a competitive service to cable and DSL. Unfortunately, it is probably just that, with lower capacity. Let's see, what happens when there are 20 people on the same accept point? You get something that works fine for someone in a Starbucks trying to read email and something that doesn't work at all for downloading the latest 12MB update from Microsoft.WiFi even at G levels has a maximum bandwith of 54Mb/sec, which translates to about 6MB/sec. Wow, 6MB a second, that's better than most cable systems, right? Wrong. 6MB a second for the access point. This is divided up amongst all the users within range, and possibly over a significant area if each individual access point doesn't have it's own 6MB/sec Internet connection.In a real-world implementation with some kind of mesh network and relatively few hard-wired connections between them, you are going to quickly run out of bandwidth when people use this as an alternative to a wired connection. Therefore, this isn't any competition at all and serves to just allow people to connect when away from home.The likelyhood that this will be used as a cheap alternative to a hardwired connection is high. Therefore, there is a high likelyhood that the service will suck from the moment it is turned on. [ Reply to ThisRe:Good news by WolfWithoutAClause (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:21PMRe:Good news by Atmchicago (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:23PMRe:Good news by DavidD_CA (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @11:13PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. What more could you want?? (Score:2) by SuperDuG (134989) <be&eclec,tk> on Sunday October 23, @09:11PM (#13860773) (http://www.eclec.tk/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 25, @04:37PM) I love my town. Zombies and Wi-Fi. What more could you want?How about this Halloween you don't have RIOTS [archive.org] ??Kudo's to Madison thought, I have a chance to park between Monona and Mendota everytime I go visit the folks. Downtown Wisconsin is actually a rather nice place to hang out with a lot of eateries, coffee shops, and "bars". Not to mention with UW Madison sitting in the heart of downtown as well, this network will see heavy useage. [ Reply to ThisRe:What more could you want?? No Riots? by binaryspiral (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:46PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:What more could you want?? by r_benchley (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @11:11PMRe:What more could you want?? by SuperDuG (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @11:17PMRe:What more could you want?? by J-B0nd (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @11:43PM Whoa! (Score:2) by Comatose51 (687974) on Sunday October 23, @09:27PM (#13860835) 'I made a commitment in 2004 to bring Wi-Fi to Madison,' said Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz in a statement. 'This is an important new service for Madison residents and businesses.' A politician who kept his word!? What is this world coming to? First open source software, then municipal WiFi, and now an honest politician. You know it is getting a little chilly [wunderground.com] right now. I better get my spare blankets ready; Lucifer might want his favor returned soon. [ Reply to This Wireless Bandwidth on a single VHF frequency (Score:3, Interesting) by NewKimAll (923422) on Sunday October 23, @09:35PM (#13860867) From what I understand, the standard bandwidth for VHF television will be going away pretty soon to get re-allocated. If the FCC were to allow the bandwidth for just one television station to be used wirelessly, how much bandwidth would that be per channel? Does anyone know?Could this be a possibility when people decide that 54G is still too slow to serve enough people at any given access point? [ Reply to ThisRe:Wireless Bandwidth on a single VHF frequency by NeuralAbyss (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:15PMreallocation by YesIAmAScript (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @11:33PM I planted this idea (Score:2) by bmasel (129946) <bmasel@CURIEtds.net minus physicist> on Sunday October 23, @09:44PM (#13860904) in Cieslewicz' brain, when we were both running for the State Assembly in 1992, he in the Dem. primary, where he lost to now Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin, while I was just fooling around in the Republican Primary. [ Reply to This I live here, this is a WASTE! (Score:1) by dangermen (248354) on Sunday October 23, @09:50PM (#13860921) (http://www.dangermen.com) I live here. This is a waste. The city has been in the RED for years now and it wants to take this ON!?!?? WTF Madison is a pretty connected city. It needs to save the money and put it towards other things instead of this crap. [ Reply to ThisRe:I live here, this is a WASTE! by jwilhelm (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:00PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. One Cool Town... (Score:1, Offtopic) by Revenge_of_Solver_Ta (862178) on Sunday October 23, @09:51PM (#13860924) (http://www.webtoolscentral.net/) If I'm not mistaken, Madison has a pretty healthy party scene for the kiddies?Add wireless and the possibilities are endless. Real time advertising of the night's 'all you can drink' specials: expect to a see a entrepreneur marketing a 'live ratio' (M/F) count app of the establishments to avoid a night of Octoberfest (plenty of beer and plenty of sausage).This is like Strange Brew meeting Snowcrash. [ Reply to This this will be interesting (Score:2, Insightful) by ScottSCY (798415) on Sunday October 23, @10:02PM (#13860959) I'm very interested to see how this plays out and how effective it will be. I've spent a lot of time in madison (my girlfriend lives there), and it's one of the most spread out cities I've seen. They apparently have a law there (or city ordinance?) that no building can be taller than the capitol. It seems like having a city be so spread out would present some problems to deploying wifi on a large scale.Another thing is the UW campus takes up a large part of the downtown, and a large percentage of the people who hang around downtown are students. So, don't most already have wireless through the university? Is there really a need for city-wide wireless?Just a few thoughts. [ Reply to This Mayor Dave is an Asshat. (Score:1, Troll) by RingDev (879105) on Sunday October 23, @10:10PM (#13860986) (http://www.ringdev.com/) That's about the sum of it. If there is anyway that municipal WiFi can go bad, he will find it. This man is driving our cities bars out of business, shooting small business owners in the foot, and only increasing the likelihood of the holloween riots. In addition to numerous other incidents that he has handled in the worst possible way.Luckily there are a few local groups that are pushing for an impeachment. Its doubtfull that they will succed, but hopefully they'll put enough heat on the city alders that Dave's remaining time will be wasted.Also, the lack of diversity does not imply racism. Especially in Madison. The rest of the state refers to Madison as "A pocket of librals, surrounded by reality". I was born and raised in the Madison area, spent some time in the military, and can honestly say I don't give a crap what color you are, what god you pray too, or where you are from, if you're an asshole, your an asshole. With the exception of Texans, everyone from Texas starts with the check in the 'asshole' box ;)-Rick [ Reply to This Free city WiFi - 2yrs and still going, (Score:2) by Graemee (524726) on Sunday October 23, @10:17PM (#13861021) http://www.fred-ezone.ca/ [fred-ezone.ca] Fredericton, my home has been running and expanding it's free WiFi for the last few years. Cisco just did a film showcasing the work. For the record, both cable and DSL are offered by paid services in the city. AFAIK the free wifi has not affect them too much and if anything as maybe prompted them to offer much faster speeds to compete. [ Reply to This What about wi-fi in rural?? (Score:1) by bdulac (868850) on Sunday October 23, @10:48PM (#13861162) I live in a mountainous regoin that makes it really hard to have any type of wi-fi implemented. When will there be options for the rest of us? [ Reply to This What more... (Score:2) by Tom7 (102298) on Sunday October 23, @11:27PM (#13861320) (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom7/ | Last Journal: Monday January 07, @02:07AM) Zombies and Wi-Fi. What more could you want?Cheese? [ Reply to This Mayor Dave = Fascist (Score:1) by pbr7379 (447436) on Monday October 24, @12:05AM (#13861465) WiFi, smifi! This Mayor and City Council are destroying a once interesting city by making it an elitist mecca. This myth about Madison being liberal is about as far fetched as a free hot lunch. TANSTAAFL! All the liberals sold their homes and moved out of town because they couldn't afford the proerty taxes anymore.Look for the new signs that should be going up soon when you come into Madison, they will read "Welcome to Boulder Colorado".pbr7379 - Once proud lifelong resident of Madison. But one day it will be mine again! Free Madison! [ Reply to This Re:Rah-rah Madison (Score:2) by admdrew (782761) <admdrew@gm a i l . com> on Sunday October 23, @08:48PM (#13860665) (http://www.admdrew.com/) Even with the university, Madison is >86% white people. ...just like a lot of non-metro-sized midwest cities. It is unfortunate, though, that the myth of diversity (or even semi-diversity) is perpetuated by a lot of places around here (the UW included). [ Reply to This | Parent1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Rah-rah Madison (Score:4, Interesting) by carambola5 (456983) on Sunday October 23, @08:53PM (#13860691) How about a competitive marketplace for cable television? Charter [charter.com] sucks. Lots. Some of us Madison residents lease their dwellingplaces and are not allowed to mount satellite dishes. Therefore, I, and many other Madisonians, are stuck with over-the-air standard TV or Charter Cable.Fortunately, I occasionally hear IPTV radio commercials for nearby towns. Hopefully those will make it to Madison before too long. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Rah-rah Madison by Ironsides (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:07PMRe:Rah-rah Madison by GXFragger (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @09:07PMRe:Rah-rah Madison by aywwts4 (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @10:47PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Rah-rah Madison by handmedowns (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @09:12PM Re:Rah-rah Madison (Score:4, Informative) by mjh (57755) <mark@h o r n c l a n . c om> on Sunday October 23, @09:16PM (#13860792) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 24, @11:01AM) I thought the FCC made a rule saying that no such restrictions were allowed: The rule applies to individuals who place antennas that meet size limitations on property that they own or rent and that is within their exclusive use or control, including condominium owners and cooperative owners, and tenants who have an area where they have exclusive use, such as a balcony or patio, in which to install the antenna. The rule applies to townhomes and manufactured homes, as well as to single family homes. [fcc.gov] The deal here is that you have exclusive use of the area. I've even read of people placing their sat dishes inside a south facing window in order for this rule to apply to them.Of course, if you don't have any view to the south you're still screwed. [ Reply to This | Parent Incentive (Score:2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, @08:59PM (#13860719) There needs to be a reason for a small town to become ethnically diverse. A lot of non-whites live in larger cities because there are lots of jobs and lots of non-whites with whom they can relate. What you're suggesting is more drastic than bussing folks around for a mix of races at schools. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Incentive by Karma_fucker_sucker (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @09:28PMRe:Incentive by RingDev (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:23PMPeople! by yamum (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @10:14PMRe:People! by IANAAC (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @10:49PMRe:People! by yamum (Score:1) Sunday October 23, @11:01PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Rah-rah Madison (Score:1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 23, @09:40PM (#13860893) Remember Madison is mostly a campus town, unlike say... here in Minneapolis, Chicago, or other Midwest cities of the ilk. That is not to say white people are the only educated people in the world, but there is not a large portion of people there (non-white or otherwise) who are not there for either the government work or the schooling. (sorry about the double negative...)If it makes you feel any better, I am from a little dinky town in northern Wisconsin with 4K people where 1/3 the population is either Mexican or (mostly) Somali. That is pretty good diversity percentage-wise. However, it is a factory town and the "non-whites" are not there for education as they are in Madison - they are there to work at low paying crappy farm/industrial jobs right alongside white people stuck in the same position.Is this the sort of diversity you are looking for? [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Rah-rah Madison (Score:1) by DaltonRS (825261) on Sunday October 23, @10:22PM (#13861040) "What more could you want?" Gee, I don't know. Ethnic diversity? P.S. Please do not tell me how diverse the university is. Even with the university, Madison is >86% white people.So what? What, if anything, does that have to do with the wi-fi rollout? [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Rah-rah Madison (Score:2) by shutdown -p now (807394) on Monday October 24, @12:17AM (#13861502) Even with the university, Madison is >86% white people. And this is a problem exactly why? [ Reply to This | Parent10 replies beneath your current threshold.