Reed Hundt, past FCC Chairman, published an article in the San Jose Mercury arguing that ad hoc wireless networks played an important role during huricane Katrina, and that state laws banning municipal networks are a mistake. He feels the federal governmnet should encourage municipal networks with matching funds.
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Reed Hundt: "Limits on wireless leave U.S. at risk"
Posted by Larry Press at Permanent link as of 6:36 AM
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Carl Malamud posted this on Dave Farber's Interesting People list server:
ReplyDeleteFrom: Carl Malamud carl@media.org
Date: October 19, 2005 9:49:27 AM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: ip@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Limits on wireless leave U.S. at risk
I attended a fascinating session yesterday put together by the New America Foundation on this subject. Present were Greg Meffert, who is CTO of New Orleans and Paul Smith, who is Technology Director at the Center for Neighborhood Technology and worked with a team of 10 who went down to New Orleans. Smith and his team built 20-mile backhauls using WiFI to get VOIP into refugee centers and to emergency first responders.
From my detailed reading of the press reports and my personal conversations with folks on the ground, I don't think Reed is exagerating one bit in his characterization of the roll of WiFi and WiMax.
As to muni-wireless, he merely points out how important these efforts are in the wake of the lessons learned from Katrina. Again, I think he is right on the mark.
Too me, the proof is very convincing.
Carl