Monday, June 29, 2009

Wireless Access in Fond du Lac County


Link to June 29 Fond du Lac Reporter article, "County takes lead in going wireless".

Excerpt: A plan to provide high-speed wireless Internet capability to all citizens in Fond du Lac County is becoming reality — and is putting the county in a select group nationally.

"We signed the memorandum of understanding with Dotnet (June 12)," said Fond du Lac County Director of Administration Ellen Sorensen.

The Fond du Lac County Board, she said, approved the idea "conceptually" in January with Dotnet Acquisition Company.

As part of the agreement, Dotnet, based in Fond du Lac County, has access to six county radio towers in exchange for construction of high-speed wireless infrastructure. Fond du Lac County government is being provided the service at no cost, while citizens and businesses will have to contract with Dotnet to utilize the service.


The article notes that residential service will be available at a cost of $29.95 per month. Faster speeds are available for $39.95 and $49.95 per month. Which begs the question: how fast is "fast"?

And at a total annual cost of $359.40 for the basic package, home and/or business wireless access is likely to be too much of a budget-buster for some. I suspect this capability will have little impact on the Fond du Lac Public Library's network of public access Internet computers.

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