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Baton Rouge Deploys Metro-Scale Wi-Fi

Louisiana city uses mesh technology to expand wireless access downtown.

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Baton Rouge has begun deploying cellular Wi-Fi equipment to form a Wi-Fi hot zone over downtown Baton Rouge.

By creating the city's first broadband cellular Wi-Fi mesh networking system in the downtown area, the wireless hot zone will enable local residents, tourists, business and government to access the Internet and secured corporate networks from anywhere downtown. The only user requirement is a standard Wi-Fi network connection in their laptop or PDA.

Current Wi-Fi solutions require a wired backhaul, such as a T1 line at each access point. With the Tropos mesh system, Wi-Fi cells require limited wired connectivity because they communicate wirelessly with each other while providing Wi-Fi coverage for clients. This allows the city to build a scalable, metro-wide, non-line-of-sight network that can easily be expanded by adding Wi-Fi cells.

Local law enforcement and other public-safety departments will be able to roam between the Wi-Fi network and the much slower networks currently in use, enabling them to slowly migrate applications to the faster network.
Miriam Jones is a former chief copy editor of Government Technology, Governing, Public CIO and Emergency Management magazines.