In an era of booming, citywide Wi-Fi deployments, Cisco Systems announced the unveiling of a Cisco first—an intelligent wireless "mesh" solution that leverages Cisco's advanced Wi-Fi technologies to enable municipalities to provide high-speed wireless network and Internet connectivity services. Cisco’s partners, HP and IBM, are working together to make it so.

Alan S. Cohen, senior director, Wireless Networking Business Unit at Cisco Systems, said, "With Cisco's Wi-Fi mesh solution, cities and local service providers will be able to implement a secure and self-healing outdoor wireless network that not only gives the public access to the Internet, but allows cities to rollout new and advanced services that build upon their existing indoor networks and applications."

Mike Rigodanzo, vice president of Technology Services, HP, agreed, "Building on our companies' relationship around indoor wireless, HP plans to work with Cisco in the mesh space to offer customers an outdoor wireless solution that combines Cisco's wireless technology with our integration services to accelerate deployments worldwide."

Michael Dillon, director of Safety, Security & Community Broadband at IBM, said, "The new mesh wireless option helps position IBM and our long-standing partner, Cisco Systems, to continue as a leader in the global adoption of community broadband wireless access and IP networking services."

Dayton, Ohio, and Lebanon, Ore., are two examples of cities, both large and small, now deploying Cisco’s meshed Wi-Fi.

"Ubiquitous access to the Internet is what drove the city of Dayton to consider wireless mesh technologies," said William E. Hill, director, Information and Technology Services for the City of Dayton. "By working with HarborLink, a local wireless Internet Service Provider, we have created a public-private partnership that is ushering in a new era of free Internet access for all."

Dayton plans to have its 55 sq miles covered by the end of 2006. Future plans may even include placing mesh access points on city buses to provide commuters with Internet access.

With a population nearly 13,000, Lebanon mirrors hundreds of other small town environments where offering affordable high-speed Internet access has been a challenge. In Lebanon, the Cisco Wi-Fi mesh solution covers 40% of the town, but the focus is on rolling out new city services on top of the mesh network. The city plans to test the mesh network with police cars and public works vehicles equipped with mobile terminals. This way, officers and city workers can wirelessly connect back to their existing IT infrastructure and take advantage of their applications, IP communications and streaming video.

"With mobile tools and field reporting using wireless, this will be a big step in the evolution of efficiency," said Tom Oliver, information service manager for the City of Lebanon. "If a public works maintenance crew needs to fix a shut off valve, they can see in real time where it is below the ground. With aerial photos and line work, such as pipes, there is a lot of visual material that requires the bandwidth that the mesh network can provide."

One of the technology breakthroughs in developing the Cisco mesh solution was the innovation of the Adaptive Wireless Path Protocol. Specifically designed for massive wireless network environments, this protocol enables a remote access point (AP) to dynamically select the best data path among other APs within the mesh coverage area. This provides greater data resiliency to radio-frequency interference and helps to ensure optimal network capacity.

As new access points are added to expand the network, Cisco’s Adaptive Wireless Path technology enables each AP to dynamically adjust data routing schemes for maximum efficiency. In effect, mesh technology provides an expandable network that has no backbone. Brilliant!

For more information on Cisco’s wireless mesh technology, visit www.cisco.com/go/wirelessmesh.

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