On June 3, 2008 Oklahoma City is launching what it claims to be the largest city-owned municipal Wi-Fi mesh network in the world. The network, which went live in September 2006 and has been improved and expanded since that time, will be used only for public safety and municipal applications; it is not open to the public for Internet access.
The city paid $5 million for the network out of public safety capital sales tax and city capital improvement funds. The network consists of 1100 mesh nodes from Tropos Networks which are installed on siren towers, buildings and traffic lights; 900 mobile nodes are installed in city vehicles, allowing city workers to communicate with the mounted Wi-Fi mesh nodes and extend the coverage area. The city will add more nodes when needed.
I spoke to Mark Meier, IT director of Oklahoma City and he says that the network covers 555 square miles with 95 percent coverage in urban areas and 95 percent coverage on main roads. Police officers now have better access to crime databases in real time: they can download photos and file reports in the field. They can also connect to the 300 video surveillance cameras that are installed throughout the city. City inspectors have been using Wi-Fi enabled devices to streamline the review and processing of construction inspections and permits. The fire department will use the network so that they have the most recent information about locations before proceeding to a fire or accident (e.g. site maps, building floor plans, hazardous materials information). Eventually other city departments (public works, utilities) will use the network. Approximately 1200 people use the network everyday.
When I asked Meier what were the biggest surprises, he says he is impressed most by how well the network actually works. One can sit in a police car traveling at 40 miles per hour and get a continuous video feed from the surveillance cameras. He also says that the network was much more complicated to set up because so many variables were at play.
Open to the public anytime soon?
I asked if they would ever open up the network for public access and Meier replied that in 2006, they issued an RFP for the public access portion, but no one responded. That’s probably because the city wanted the provider to pay for all of the costs of the deployment with only $150,000 in city contribution. Click here to see my detailed post on the Oklahoma City RFP.
The trend in municipal wireless broadband is definitely moving towards either a mixed use (public access plus municipal applications as in Cambria County, Allegany County, Minneapolis and Riverside, California) or municipal use only (Corpus Christi and now Oklahoma City).
Below is the map of Oklahoma City showing the network coverage. The area within the blue lines is the urban core, where there is 95 percent coverage. The red lines denote the main line roads where there is 95 percent coverage.
