11:00 AM
Paul B
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| (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Santa Clara California now have free wireless internet to go with their new smart meter program. The reason they are able to do this is that the city will be using the wireless technology to read the smart meters remotely.
From GigaOM:
Residents of Santa Clara, Calif. not only have a new smart meter program but free outdoor Wi-Fi to boot. The city’s non-profit electric municipal utility, Silicon Valley Power (SVP), is taking advantage of connected electric meters by integrating support for a second public unencrypted Wi-Fi channel, allowing the city to blanket the airwaves with free Wi-Fi.
SVP expects to support around 5,000 daily connections on the new public network, which has an SSID, or network name, of “SVPMeterConnectWiFi.” There’s no login, no password, nor credentials of any kind needed to use the outdoor wireless network. Utility data from the meters will be sent securely, however.Although the access is free, which is cool, it is not fast, which sucks. The Internet speed on the new wi-fi system is around 1Mbps, which is slightly slower than A-DSL or 3G.
You can find out more about the program by visiting santaclarafreewifi.com.
