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PrintImagine: a wireless network spreading miles across mid-Missouri, encompassing Columbia and reaching potentially as far as Jefferson City. No longer would people be forced to seek out a Panera or Starbucks for their wireless delight.
Mike Crist, director of Enterprise Development Corp., envisions this becoming a reality sooner than Columbia residents might expect.
“We’re hoping to have the system up and functioning by the first of the year,” Crist said. “It will make a difference. This is the next generation of Internet connection.”
A partnership among Crist, Woodruff Sweitzer’s Terry Woodruff, MU Associate Business Dean Ken Evans and a company called Full Stream is working to make it possible.
“We’re going to try to work through one or more ISP providers,” Evans said. “Pricing will certainly not be higher than a typical DSL would look like.”
Crist said the work began about two years ago on WiMax, which he believes has distinct advantages over the current wireless system, WiFi. Where WiFi only has a range of 300 feet and, according to Crist, “is not very secure,” WiMax has a full mobile range of three miles from a tower and can reach as far as 20 miles on a clear field of vision. It also has speeds exceeding cable and DSL.
“About three, four years ago, equipment came about to do non-line-of-sight services, NLOS,” Crist said. “Previously, the technology wasn’t available. You had to see the transmitter.”
Both WiMax and WiFi offer an Internet connection through radio waves, but according to Crist, many residents of Columbia are dealing with slower and inflexible cable connections. Crist said that cable Internet connections cost more than WiMax because WiMax only requires a small antenna for each customer.
“Columbia is currently starved for bandwidth,” Crist said. “This will determine what brings new business. And, right now, Columbia’s behind, surprisingly.”
Columbia now offers wireless service at various iZones throughout the city, in places such as Shakespeare’s Pizza, Lakota Coffee Co. and Sub Shop. The company also personally installs wireless networks in residential homes and hotels. It uses WiFi to connect to the Internet.
“We’ve had iZones here for a couple years,” said Carrie Gartner, Columbia Special Business director. “They’re a local company that’s been providing this service for awhile.”
Only a few small cities in the United States have experimented with WiMax so far, but outside the country is a different story. Crist described an entire network spread over the city of Sydney, Australia, and said that a network also covers South Korea and Mexico City. The 2000 Census estimated Columbia’s population to be more than 90,000 people by 2006, and Crist believes many of those residents — in the academic shadow of MU and Stephens and Columbia colleges — would benefit from such a wireless system.
But the benefits do not simply stop at providing a more convenient way to check e-mail.
The speed and strength of WiMax also promises real-time streaming video, which Crist believes would help police, public works, building inspectors and others. For instance, people could watch events on real-time security cameras or instantly call up building plans in ways unknown before.
“The more you dig into it, the more services you can find that you wouldn’t be able to find otherwise,” Crist said.
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