Why Mesh Networks are a Really Good Idea for NYC and its Subways

Sascha Meinrath writes about “why the use of proprietary wireless technology is an extremely bad idea”, especially when it comes to NYC’s just announced police wireless network just installed in the subways of NYC:

So imagine my surprise when, in today’s New York Times, I read about the Police Wireless system that was just installed in the NYC subways. It doesn’t work—in fact, they’ve known that it wouldn’t work since 2001, but they built it anyway. And the pricetag? $140,000,000 already spent, with another $60,000,000 needed before it’ll be operational. Think about this a moment, $20,000,000 to wireless the city, $200,000,000 to wireless the subway for police use.

Sascha writes about how mesh wireless technology would have been a much better idea, along with open standards to ensure interoperability.

I wrote about how mesh could be used to help build real broadband deployments in NYC over 1.5 years ago:

Here again, mesh networks can play multiple roles. Nodes can disburse wireless internet backhaul from the city’s dark fiber and existing excess bandwidth via a mesh network mounted on lamp posts. That network can feed separate mesh networks that draw the internet up into and throughout a building like a tree drinks water. And people and businesses can move their lives and their livelihoods from building to building without causing network disturbances.

With the help of mesh networks, New York can become a living, organic city, whose lifeblood is the packets of information that flows freely from point to point, person to person, bouncing around automatically finding its way to and from the internet.

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