Wilmington is now the ONLY city in the nation utilizing “white space” per a national experiment on the now unused bandwidths now unused when TV converted from analog to digital in 2008. With that, a rush to jump into this new wireless world known as “super wi-fi” will be an interesting test on monitoring by local government.
During the testing phase, cameras and wireless Internet access were installed at Hugh MacRae Park and other locations in the area. . . Cameras using the white space network also are installed at Airlie Gardens. . . . Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo said the white space network enables the city’s police department to install surveillance cameras at a fraction of the cost of installing one using cables and other wires necessary to reach a signal. . . For now, county visitors and residents can only tap into Internet access over the white spaces in areas provided by the county.
Just something to think about with caution. This is not something in the private sector and is mainly being utilized by government for monitoring folks at this point in time. What will this mean to competitive Wi-Fi? How much content monitoring will take place? How much will you eventually be monitored by public light poles?
Though this sounds a bit conspiratorial, red light cameras are real, public monitoring polls are installed in areas downtown like the post office. It’s not far fetched at all.
And you’ll be able to look back and say it all started in Wilmington, NC!
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