[1st-mile-nm] Santa Fe Plaza Free WiFi

[John Brown]

Hi,   It would be good to make sure the units of measurement are accurate.

1 GigaBYTE of service seems unlikely.
They probably mean  1GigaBIT.

But then they could be doing 1GigaBYTE is the maximum number of bytes they will
allow to be transferred, which is hardly anything.   Sending a couple
dozen photos
could consume that.

By making sure we quote and report accurate units of measurement it
will help make accurate
comparisons between other communities, and will help policy people
with accurate info as well.

Would you want 100cents or 100dollars ??   100 is just 100


On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 10:49 AM Richard Lowenberg <rl at 1st-mile.org> wrote:
>
> Free Wi-Fi available on Santa Fe's Plaza
>
> By Teya Vitu    tvitu at sfnewmexican.com   Jan 23, 2020
>
> https://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/free-wi-fi-available-on-santa-fe-s-plaza/article_25b1835a-3d40-11ea-85b3-1febccff8d79.html
>
> The city of Santa Fe has quietly gone live with free Wi-Fi service on
> the Plaza.
>
> The project, part of a wider effort by the Santa Fe Chamber of
> Commerce’s broadband working group to improve internet access across
> Santa Fe County, can be found at “SF Plaza Free WiFi.” Neither the city
> nor the chamber has publicly announced the service, but the system has
> been tested, with 7,704 unique users since April.
>
> Local internet service provider Cyber Mesa contracted with the city to
> install and manage the system, which is fed by fiber-optic internet
> service and includes four wireless access points — point-to-point
> internet backhaul radios on the roofs of the Market Station building at
> the Railyard, where some city offices are located, and another downtown
> building.
>
> The system provides 1 gigabyte of internet service with a speed of 10
> megabytes per second and a capacity of 1,000 users at once, said Stephen
> Resnick, who chairs the chamber’s broadband working group and is the
> owner of Capitol Computer & Network Solutions.
>
> “If you can get 5 megabytes when you are out and about, that’s great to
> find restaurants, galleries, take a video and upload it to the cloud,”
> Resnick said. “Really, 5 [megabytes] is a good minimum.”
>
> The working group for the past year or two has been trying to find ways
> to improve internet service across the county through free Wi-Fi,
> improved broadband and, in some rural areas, new broadband internet
> service.
>
> The free Plaza Wi-Fi service is the group’s first completed project,
> funded with $18,859 from Tourism Santa Fe, the city’s convention and
> visitors bureau. The cost to maintain the service is about $800 per
> month, said Randy Randall, Tourism Santa Fe’s executive director.
>
> “We wanted the Plaza to be a proof of concept,” Resnick said.
>
> The broadband working group is composed of representatives from the city
> and Santa Fe County economic development departments, Santa Fe Public
> Schools and the Regional Economic Development Initiative Network, better
> known as REDI Net. The Northern New Mexico network is governed by three
> counties, one city, four pueblos and the North Central New Mexico
> Economic Development District.
>
> “We do plan to expand [free Wi-Fi] from the Plaza,” said Chris Hyer, the
> county’s economic development manager and a working group member.
>
> Justin Greene, founder of Dashing Delivery and the Tesuque Pueblo
> representative at REDI Net, said the group could easily expand service
> to the Santa Fe Farmers Market Pavilion and Railyard Park from the
> Market Station building.
>
> In coming weeks, he said, window stickers will be made available to
> downtown businesses to bring awareness about the Plaza Wi-Fi service.
>
> Free Wi-Fi also could come to Santa Fe neighborhoods through the school
> district, which so far has installed fiber-optic cable at 25 locations
> where wireless access points could be installed.
>
> “It’s possible we can get a few [wireless access points] up by the end
> of the year, ” said Patricia Nordby, director of technology at Santa Fe
> Public Schools.
>
> Free wireless internet access emerged in the 2000s, and service provided
> by local governments has since become commonplace across the country and
> around the world.
>
> The city of Albuquerque has been offering free Wi-Fi at various
> facilities since 2006. Las Cruces just launched free Wi-Fi on Sept. 12,
> and the Los Alamos Network internet service provider has provided free
> Wi-Fi at various downtown locations for about three years.
>
> “Where there is good internet service available, you can do free Wi-Fi,”
> Resnick said.
>
> Santa Fe County wants to establish a network of point-to-point internet
> connections across the county, but broadband service must be improved or
> established in rural areas before that can happen, Hyer said.
>
> The key is finding funding sources for these projects, such as Tourism
> Santa Fe for the Plaza Wi-Fi project.
>
> The broadband working group sees potential for collaboration.
>
> “We want to interconnect city, county and school fiber optic systems and
> provide redundancies and extend the reach of broadband access across the
> county,” Greene said.
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> Richard Lowenberg, Executive Director
> 1st-Mile Institute     505-603-5200
> Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504,
> rl at 1st-mile.org     www.1st-mile.org
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
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-- 
Respectfully,

John Brown, CISSP
Managing Member, CityLink Telecommunications NM, LLC