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Boston's neighboring town of Brookline is currently trying to turn the whole place wireless. While it claims to have the world's first public dial-up Internet access, the town is hoping to make everything easier with setting up town-wide wireless for its residents. Now, instead of being bothered with parking meters, using cable modems in computers, or searching the Internet for town files, the system would link everything without all the wires. The town already relies on the Internet in many town government sections; police spend $50,000 a year to access federal and local databases from their cruisers (one of first departments to do), while residents pay parking tickets, bills, and taxes online too. Some schools and libraries are already wireless.
So what is the big deal? Well, Brookline would be one of a handful of towns, like Spokane, Wash. and Chaska, Minn., to try out the town-wide wireless. Cost wise, it could be a good move. Brookline could provide it like another utility or the wireless provider could try to match Comcast and RCN prices, which would start another bidding war for residents. While some think it will just get rid of more town employees, others see it as moving forward and setting a trend for others in the area, like Somerville and Cambridge, who provide wireless in some shops and universities.
There was a town meeting last night to decide whether to move forward with this...but Bostonist thinks that if Brookline takes the lead, Boston's neighborhoods will be close behind.
Photo courtesy of flickr.com / user:rustedscissors
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In many ways, Brookline is perfect for this -- it's a small town (only 7 square miles), has a decent amount of wealth, has a pretty high population density (with a lot of multi-family homes and apartment buildings), and a lot of that population is made up of students and other tech-savvy people. Currently, in order to get high-speed connections, people have to choose between DSL (which is expensive and relies on a phone company contract) or cable (which is expensive unless you bundle it with cable TV service that you might not want). Having access to wireless without any other crap could be a powerful draw!
you know what i'm not too fond of? raisins. they just don't do much for me.
there, i said it.