Silicon Valley Unwired is proud to announce the pending turn up of the free citywide WiFi network we announced at the State of the Community address on April 22, 2009. The network is in its final testing phases and we plan on having it available to the public in a few weeks. Watch this space (and our website) for more information as it becomes available.

We have been very busy since the announcement reconfiguring the network to make it more streamlined and efficient in preparation for opening it up to the public. Not only have we installed the latest software versions on the existing equipment, we have also moved nodes around the city and even added more than 10 nodes to the network. From our experience in Mountain View, we think Milpitas should have around 500 nodes to cover the city properly. Currently the network has just over 300 nodes, so obviously we have a ways to go. As our non-profit is able to raise more donations, we will begin to purchase and install the additional needed radios. We have added two addtional backhaul distribution sites by erecting portable tower systems at two Fire Station locations. This has given us the flexibility that we need to expand the network by distributing bandwidth more evenly throughout the network.

While we have improved the network quite a bit from the Earthlink days, it will still take more funding to further develop it into a world class system (adding addtional nodes, gateways, and point to multipoint systems). We have been successful thus far in reconfiguring the network to operate more efficiently with increased bandwidth for the end user and with less maintenance required on ours or the city’s part.

For those of you not familiar with how a citywide WiFi network works, here are a few details. Most citywide WiFi networks actually have 2 wireless networks — 1 is the “access” network which uses WiFi and has mesh nodes in various neighborhoods around the city (green and blue arrows below), and the second is the Capacity Injection Layer or backhaul network (orange arrows below). Note there are 4 basestations in our design for the Milpitas network. The backhaul network is, of course, much higher speed than the access network, but the available connections are fewer and more expensive.

Milpitas WiFi Network

The access layer is standard WiFi using 802.11b/g protocol. Note that the access network is designed primarily as an outdoor network — mostly because of the physics of the radio frequencies assigned to WiFi. Unlike cellular networks which use much lower frequencies which can go through building walls much better, WiFi devices are confined to the assigned unlicensed spectrum. While the nodes out on the street light poles transmit at the maximum power allowed — 1 watt –, most laptops and handheld devices transmit at levels closer to 60 milliwatts. They do this, understandably, to conserve battery life, but it does limit their range.

To boost the transmit power of the client devices, we (and almost all other Wireless ISPs) recommend using a wifi modem — a device which translates the wireless WiFi signal to standard Ethernet which you can plug into a local switch or directly into a computer or through a small local WiFi repeater in your home. Check in the wifi modem section of our web pages to find some suggested devices which work in the network and where you can buy them.

Check our website for a FAQ about the network and how to connect as well as a map of where the current nodes are and how to reach us. Please be patient as we are working hard to bring this network up to our standard as quickly as possible.