Dayton Goes Wireless & Wireless Dayton Days presented by Bill Hill, Peter Hess, & others
Tuesday, March 29 at University of Dayton Campus, Dayton, Ohio No charge.    Please bring a friend.    Guests welcome. Please join us Tuesday night, March 29, 2005 for this free presentation at the University of Dayton. Go to O'Leary Auditorium in Miriam Hall. We'll begin at 7:30 p.m. Bring a friend. Dayton Goes Wireless by Peter Hess & Bob Kwater

The Dayton City Commission has approved testing new wireless fidelity (“Wi-Fi”) services in a limited test area over the next few months before deciding to pursue expansion of the technology citywide. The move makes Dayton the first city in Ohio to initiate citywide, edge-to-edge Wi-Fi coverage. Dayton also becomes the first city nationally to offer a public-private partnership Wi-Fi model that is not funded by taxpayers and comes at no charge to the end user.

The Dayton City Commission approved a test agreement with HarborLink Network to test and prove a Wi-Fi meshed architecture within an approximately one square-mile area of downtown, which includes the Oregon Business District, RiverScape, Fifth Third Field, Webster Station, and Tech Town areas. The Wi-Fi infrastructure will be located within the City's public rights of way and on specific City-owned facilities. Within this test area, people will be able to access the Internet at no cost on streets, sidewalks and green-spaces. The initial test agreement with HarborLink will allow the City of Dayton to make determinations about expanding Wi-Fi services throughout the community.

“Dayton remains at the cutting edge of using technology to enhance the lives of our residents and businesses,” Mayor Rhine McLin said. “John Patterson, the Wright Brothers and Charles Kettering would be proud of the innovative step we are taking to put technology at people's fingertips. Dayton is working to break down the barriers of the digital divide, without burdening taxpayers in the process.”

Commissioner Matt Joseph added, “We want to position this city for everyone that may benefit from this technology. We are not talking about a ‘Hot Spot’ here, but rather a ‘Hot City’!”

Bill Hill, the City of Dayton's Director of Information and Technology Services, will be coordinating this new initiative. He cited several benefits of free Wi-Fi technology within the city limits.

“We may someday be able to utilize this service for some City functions where our own workforce needs to be able to electronically complete and submit their work orders for processing. We also believe we can leverage this opportunity for future technological advancements in the areas of Wi-Fi enabled phones, automated meter reading (AMR), automated vehicle location (AVL), and mug-shot and fingerprint transmission capabilities for our public safety forces, just to name a few.”

According to Hill, accessing the Internet through Wi-Fi technology is similar to using a computer or other device hooked up to a typical dedicated Internet service. Anyone with a Wi-Fi enabled laptop, PDA, or telephone will be able to take advantage of this service. Almost every laptop produced today comes with built-in wireless capability, and many older laptops can accept a wireless card to allow them to work in this environment. Users will connect to the Internet after acknowledging a disclaimer page that automatically appears from HarborLink.

“Our public/private partnership with HarborLink in this testing phase will prove the concept of a free service to our citizens,” Hill said. “HarborLink will basically offer some advertising to the end user to offset the cost that would normally have been passed on to the user. This allows the service to be offered at no cost. The City will be leveraging access to areas on City-owned facilities and in the rights of way to allow installation of the access points. The City will also be providing the backhaul connectivity to the Internet.”

“Offering wireless capabilities in the city will only strengthen Dayton's position as a destination point for high-tech and cutting-edge companies,” said JP Nauseef, Chief Operating Officer of the Dayton Development Coalition. “The Dayton Development Coalition certainly applauds and supports the City.s aggressive steps to go wireless. I cannot overemphasize the strategic value such a move creates for marketing Dayton as a great place to live and work.”

The Dayton Microcomputer Association March 29 General Meeting will consist of a panel discussion about Dayton's Wireless Downtown. Principle guest will be Bill Hill, Director of Information and Technology Services for the City of Dayton . Other panelists will be representatives from the key companies involved: Rick Tangeman (Harbor Link), Leigh Sandy (DoNet), Dave Reeves (P&R Communication) and Chris Miller (Legal representative from Shottenstein, Zox and Dunn) as partner panelists.

Note: See this article for a hint at what city wide Wi-Fi might mean to the future. - D. Lundy

We have a Name… We have a Venue > We have an Event: Wireless Dayton Days

by Peter Hess

The wireless event taking place on Friday, April 29 (Arbor Day) and Saturday, April 30 which demonstrates Dayton's new wireless network that provides free Internet access, now has all of the above and will provide much more.

• The Name: Wireless Dayton Days
• The Event's web site: www.wirelessdaytondays.org
• The Venue: First floor South Atrium of Ponitz Center at Sinclair Community College, including rooms 12-120, 12-131 and 12-133.
• Time: Friday, April 29, 10 AM to 7 PM; Saturday, April 30 10 AM to 6 PM.
• Internet Access: Free, with a wireless-enabled device (802.11--B and G).
• Likely Recognition for Dayton and DMA®: Potential to set Guinness Record.
• Admission: Free

What we need now: Volunteers.

I am afraid that I was mistaken when I thought when the Spring Computerfest® was cancelled, that we would be able to draw from much of that volunteer time, talent and energy which Computerfest® had generated. We need your resources for this project. As of this writing, we have three times as many volunteers from LexisNexis® than we have from the Dayton Microcomputer Association, but DMA® is sponsoring Wireless Dayton Days. The Computerfest® volunteer effort helped create and motivate a large number of volunteer energy. To channel that energy toward Wireless Dayton Days, please email: here

Efforts are now being made to attract vendors which will offer a variety of trade-show options. The trade show portion of this event was never designed to be what Computerfest® attendees have seen in recent years. The maximum number of booth spaces available for the Wireless Dayton Days event will be only about 30.

A booklet/program is also being designed to distribute to those who would like to duplicate their wireless connection experience with help from documentation. We need writers to submit articles to be published in this booklet. Writers, please email: here

The goals for this event will be:

• The free, Wireless Internet Experience.
• The sharing of that wireless Internet experience—by trained volunteers who will mentor new users through the process of connecting to Dayton's unique wireless network.
• The knowledge gained from knowing what Dayton's free wireless network now offers, will offer and can offer. A wireless enabled user, or wireless wannabe coming to our event and walking away happy, having experienced Dayton's Free Wireless Network and knowing more about wireless networking.

Users who are presently wireless enabled or those who wish to learn about this option may also attend free seminars at Wireless Dayton Days. The seminars will be offered for those wanting more than just the experience of connecting to a free, public, wireless network. Sinclair Community College instructors will be facilitating many of these seminars.

Learn more about Dayton's Free, Public Wireless Internet access at the Tuesday, March 29 DMA® General meeting. I'll see you there.

Please join us Tuesday night, March 29, 2005 for this free presentation at the University of Dayton. Go to O'Leary Auditorium in Miriam Hall. We'll begin at 7:30 p.m. Bring a friend.

Jim Rowe, Editor
The DataBus
editor@dma.org

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