Burbank Water and Power October 24th, 2007
Of all the municipal wifi projects there seems to be none that have a business plan that looks anywhere near what is needed to run a wifi network across an entire city.
That is until the Burbank Water and Power wifi network was announced. Overall the idea is that the wifi network will be built to save on having people's power meters read every twelve weeks or so. The wifi network will be there to enable such things as power meters to be read, and to provide regulation of power usage by consumers.
As an after thought the idea is that there will also be a wifi network that can be provided free to use by those people who participate in wise use of power, or those that reduce their power use in peak periods. These people can be rewared by having wifi provided free.
Let' hope this one can get off the ground and provide a business model that is workable and one that could spread through other municipal centers. Maybe muni-wifi has a future after all!