|
|
|
Engulfed in wireless clouds |
|
Wednesday, 22
October 2008 |
|
Delta’s Novax
Industries is proposing Wi-Fi networks along Main, Broadway and Hastings
streets that could provide free Internet access to more than 23,000 residents
and businesses Curt Cherewayko Roughly 8,000 businesses and residents
along Vancouver’s Main Street corridor will have free access to wireless
Internet by December, when the installation of the first of three mesh Wi-Fi
networks in Vancouver is completed. The deployment of the network, which runs
north along Main Street from 57th Avenue to Cordova Street in downtown
Vancouver, is the first phase in what could one day be a citywide wireless
cloud. Delta-based Novax
Industries Corp. is laying the Wi-Fi mesh network over a transit signal
priority (TSP)
system it’s installing on Main Street as part of a contract it was awarded
last February by TransLink,
the Lower Mainland’s transit authority. Transit buses equipped with wireless
beacons can remotely access the TSP
system to activate or prolong green lights to ensure consistent flow of the
Main Street transit line. Novax has been developing audible pedestrian
signals, traffic light synchronizing systems and other traffic control
systems – it’s the incumbent supplier of Vancouver’s roughly 700 traffic
light controllers – since its founding in 1981. Now, Novax’s
traffic control systems are going wireless, and the company is pitching the
systems as a platform for municipalities to build unified, multiple-use
wireless networks. Within a citywide cloud, citizens could
access the Internet, and business and government could remotely operate a
host of services, including buses, security systems and telephone networks. “If you take a look at where this might
go, you start off with transit vehicles, then you can decide to go into
emergency vehicles, then you can track commercial vehicle operations through
your network,” said David Atnikov, Novax’s
president and CEO. TransLink
plans to also deploy TSP
systems along Hastings Street and Broadway. In its request for proposals for the Main
Street TSP
system, TransLink
said that additional TSP
systems in the city will be based on the technology used on Main Street –
making Novax a front-runner for being
awarded contracts for TransLink’s
future TSP
systems. Novax
said that its technology could produce wireless networks that cover 15,000
and 8,000 businesses and residences along Broadway and Hastings Street,
respectively. City councillor and mayoral candidate
Peter Ladner confirmed that Vancouver’s community wireless broadband
initiative has been derailed because the city couldn’t develop a business
model that included a consistent revenue stream that would offset costs to
taxpayers. Novax’s
contract with TransLink
is achieving the initiative’s goal of offering free wireless access to the
public. “We are going to get Wi-Fi after all, and TransLink
is going to pay for it,” said Ladner. “It’s not going cost the city and … the
spinoff is that now there is broadband available along the route for other
uses potentially.” Some of those opposing a citywide
municipal network have pointed out that there are already at least 200 free
wireless “hotspots” in cafés, coffee shops, malls and other public-use spaces
around Vancouver. While municipal Wi-Fi networks still face
many security and regulatory issues, as well as resistance from wireless
service providers in the private sector who fear losing business, some
Canadian cities such as Fredericton and Toronto have created low-cost or free
wireless networks that encompass downtown districts or café hubs. Steveston Harbour in Richmond deployed a
wireless mesh network last month to operate a network of 22 surveillance
cameras. The wireless technology connects the
security systems of the harbour’s two separate sites, which are located about
two kilometres from each other. Although the harbour has no immediate
plans to use the network for other applications, the harbour’s operations
supervisor Joel Baziuk recognizes the opportunities the network provides. “We could provide wireless Internet access
for all of our clients if we wanted to,” he said, noting that the company could
also operate speakers, microphones and electronic gates via the network. “The idea is to give yourself a whole
bunch of doors that you may not open yet, but can open any time you want.” He said that the harbour isn’t concerned
about security breaches over the wireless network because the network is on a
limited-access frequency. As well, the company that installed the
network, California’s Firetide Inc., develops secure wireless networks for
the United States military. • Business in Vancouver October 21-27, 2008;
issue 991 |