Building Your Brand Through Community Hotspots

Technical Issues

Nex-Tech’s McClung agreed it’s important to design the system so that others cannot piggyback a hot spot. "That’s happened to us around apartments where college students live," he said. "They’re using a ton of bandwidth, not paying for it and decreasing service to others. To prevent this, try using low-powered antennas. Even so, sometimes it’s unavoidable."

Star’s Randleman pointed out that telcos should engineer their Wi-Fi network for worst-case scenarios. "Beef up your equipment for the busiest months of the year," he said. "The system we have is overkill during winter at the lake, but it works on July 4th weekend when everyone is there."

In addition, Randleman said it’s not uncommon for vendors to oversell the performance of their equipment. "A vendor might say the signal will carry a mile, and it’s more like half a mile," he said. "What works in a lab situation doesn’t always translate to the real world."

One real-world problem for Star has been fog. "Fog can really mess up signals," Randleman said.

But Jeff Evans, principal research engineer and deputy director for the Information Communications Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology, pointed out that the FCC’s decision to allow telcos to use blank television channels is a real boon. "This white space is great for Wi-Fi," he said. "These low frequencies are better able to penetrate trees, leaves and buildings. It’s perfect for rural areas. In urban areas, there would be too much interference."

Forrester’s Golvin concluded that whether people live in urban areas or rural environments, they want Internet access and services in more and more places. And much like the bingo halls of days past, Wi-Fi hot spots are an inexpensive but high-value addition to the community.

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Rachel Brown is a freelance writer. She can be reached at rachelsb@aol.com.