Remove Politics and Muni-WiFi Flourishes

Oklahoma City has just turned up a Muni WiFi network that covers 555SqMi of the city. The downside? It is a closed system not open for public consumption. But even at that the project was funded out of capital infrastructure funds and capital improvement money. The network is to be shared across multiple deptartments.

Oklahoma City says it just turned on the largest city owned and operated municipal Wi-Fi mesh network in the world.

The wireless mesh network covers 555 square miles with 95% coverage in the city’s core, the city said. However, unlike dozens of other municipal Wi-Fi projects, the Oklahoma City network is only available for use by city staff such as police, fire, first responders. The city plans to eventually expand the use of the network to animal welfare, code enforcement and utilities.

The network, which took two years to build to the tune of $5 million, was paid for with public-safety capital sales tax and city capital improvement funds.

“Our state-of-the-art wireless communication system allows city government to be more efficient and provide a higher level of service to our citizens,” Mayor Mick Cornett said in a prepared statement.

Time will tell if Oklahoma City’s network will shut down as rapidly as other cities’ networks have been shuttered across the country. Indeed, Oklahoma City’s distinction may be its choice to limit the network to just city employees.

That last sentence is key. Too many cooks in the soup spoils the broth. Other cities need to look at how OC managed the politics and kept on mission. Also take note that they deployed the whole thing for less than $5m.

RCR article.