Wi-Fi bridges the digital divide in Avondale
Ruckus
The Ruckus Room recently visited Avondale to speak with Joe Bradley, an account manager at Powernet, about his company's vision for Cincinnati's diverse neighbourhood. According to Bradley, Powernet has set up public Wi-Fi infrastructure to bridge the digital divide for residents in the neighbourhood.
"Our vision is to use Wi-Fi to connect people to everything everyone else takes for granted. For example, most of us have mobile phones and internet at home," he explained. "When we go home, we are so used to jumping straight to the internet. But in Avondale, that is not the case. So we envisioned that this would apply to everyone - so that everyone has the same opportunities as their neighbour," he explained. According to Brent Baker, Director of Network Services at Powernet, the company's main requirement for a public Wi-Fi deployment in Avondale was radio frequency (RF) performance.
"Many of [Avondale's] buildings are very old, and the construction is predominantly masonry. In addition, we were limited to where we could mount hardware," he elaborated. "This meant that the ability to penetrate walls [effectively] and get away with sub-optimal mounting locations made RF performance critical.
[Fortunately], Ruckus delivers the best RF performance in the industry. Avondale's public Wi-Fi network topology, Baker said, uses a mix of Ruckus T300 (outdoor) and Ruckus R610 (indoor) access points (APs). The access points are managed using Ruckus' Virtual SmartZone Controller, which is hosted in a Powernet data centre. As Bradley tells The Ruckus Room, the response to the public Wi-Fi rollout has been phenomenal. "[It's been] just incredible. We've seen the impact in the neighbourhood far beyond what we ever expected," he explained.
"There were some people we didn't even know were not connected. They are now connected and very happy. So it's amazing how the internet is really impacted by the neighbourhood." Libbie Au, a senior project manager for development projects at The Community Builders (TCB), expressed similar sentiments in an interview with The Ruckus Room.
According to Au, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Choice Neighborhood grant has served as a "spark plug" for development and change in Avondale. "We have worked very hard to leverage these funds," she added. "We have invested funds in over 318 units," she added. We've also made investments with partners to try to access services and things that are uplifting to people who live not only in our buildings but also in the neighbourhood.
As Au notes, both PowerNet and Ruckus have been extremely helpful in working together over the years. "We've worked with PowerNet and Ruckus to really make this vision a reality. It's been a great opportunity and I know the residents and the people who work here and have benefited from this service," she adds.
Marcel Zimmer is the Technical Managing Director of EnBITCon. During his time in the German Armed Forces, the trained IT developer was able to gain numerous project experiences. His interest in IT security was significantly awakened by his service in command support. Even after his service, he is an active reservist in the Bundeswehr.
His first firewall was a Sophos UTM 120, which he had to set up for a customer project. Since then, his interest in IT security has grown steadily. In the course of time, various security and infrastructure topics have come into his focus. His most interesting projects included, for example, WLAN coverage in an explosion-proof area, as well as a multi-site WLAN solution for a large