GRAND RAPIDS ? Free WI-FI connections will soon be available in four carefully selected test sites in Grand Rapids ? primarily government and academic locations ? with six more beta sites scheduled to go live in July.
The ten test zones will give the city of Grand Rapids a chance to find out what works and doesn?t work with wireless Internet connections. The phase 1 sites include Grand Rapids City Hall, the Grand Rapids Police Headquarters, Van Andel Institute, all in downtown Grand Rapids, and the Kent County Health Department, on the city?s Northeast side.
The demonstration project will last for eight weeks. The eight WI-Fi hot spots, only a quarter mile in diameter, will offer free Internet connections to not only the government officials and academic researchers, but also anyone with a PC and a wireless modem. But getting the general public involved does pose some security threats.
?Bit if they?re doing something to damage the network, we can shut them down,?? said Sally Wesorick, the Wireless Project Manager for the city of Grand Rapids. ?If they were doing something illegal, we can also track them back to their address.?
The city is trying to evaluate what technology to pursue for what officials hope will evolve into a greater Grand Rapids WI-FI hot spot covering some 45 square miles. Mayor George Heartwell said the technology will provide an economic development tool to attract and retain businesses, reduce the digital divide with affordable, high speed broadband service, improve municipal service delivery to residents, reduce the cost of government and create seamless wireless infrastructure to attract and retain young professionals.
The 10 companies participating in the trial run have offered to install networks for free. All of the vendors were assigned demonstration sites in a blind draw, expect for FreedomNet Solutions, a local company that already provides service to downtown Grand Rapids the banking, financial, government, legal and health core of the state?s second largest metropolitan area.
On July 1, more sites will be activated at Creston High School, a Grand Rapids Fire Station, a Grand Rapids library branch, Wealthy Theater, Walker City Hall and a location in Kentwood, a Southeast Grand Rapids suburb.
This fall, the city will issue RFPs for a build out by the end of the year. The new customers will go to a partner provider that provides the best technology as determined during the beta test.
?Will there be more choices?? asked Wesorick. ?Yes. That is our goal. But we want a wireless network for public safety and municipal use. It will improve service delivery to our residents and reduce the cost of government.?
Wesorick said police officers are in the field 24/7. Now if have a good photo of a bank robber, we can?t get the photo to our police cruisers. With this system, all our cruisers could get the photo real time.
In the reverse of an amber alert, the city could wire a photo of a missing child to police cruisers. Or if there?s an incident in school. Video cameras at the school could feed the photo over the wireless network to public safety command centers so police officers know what to expect when they arrive.
On an everyday level, city employees in public works, water, streets, and land management could do wireless field reporting. Now they write on a note pad and come back to the office and enter that info into a computer.
The city also is looking at wireless meter reading for water, electricity and natural gas that could make meter readers obsolete and save both the city and private utility providers? money ? money that could be used to keep rate increases down.
Part of this wireless experiment also includes a survey of some 500 IT professionals by GLIMAWest to determine what technology works best for the target audience of gold collar workers. The survey results are scheduled to be released this week.
