dailywireless -> Public Utility Wi-Fi
The Benton Public Utility District (P.U.D.), based in Kennewick, Wash., is installing an outdoor fiber-to-wireless system. The Seattle PI reports, it allows users of laptops or Tablet PCs to roam securely while using fiber for the backbone. Chameleon Technology provided the wireless interface to the Bonneville fiber.
"The Chameleon approach makes it practical for us to extend the existing fiber-optic network using outdoor wireless and cost-effectively, quickly, offer broadband to the community," explains Jim Sanders, general manager, Benton P.U.D. "Local Internet providers will get a boost from this, as will our customers. Best of all, it brings broadband to businesses and neighborhoods that didn't have it before."
Benton PUD will not provide Internet service but will partner with third party retail providers who can provide Wi-Fi services, Internet access, video on demand, video conferencing, and cable television over the fiber backbone.
 According to Chameleon, their Broadband Suite is a software technology which gives an operator of fiber optic transport networks the capability of deploying a community wide Wi-Fi broadband network by repurposing excess fiber bandwidth and deploy inexpensive Wi- Fi radios. Operators of broadband networks can repurpose their excess capacity.
It enables a community to introduce Wi-Fi or other unlicensed wireless broadband technologies as its last-mile delivery mechanism, while offering discrete carriers or Internet Service Providers (ISPs) access across the same wireless infrastructure and through the same fiber, cable and wireless access points.
The "carrier-grade" security features built into Chameleon meet Federal Information Processing Standards (140-2), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and relevant data security standards for law enforcement, including two-factor authentication, assigned security certificates and rolling-key, 256-bit encryption. "This security package exceeds the standards for many wired data networks," Arneson explains, "taking wireless networks to an unprecedented level of security confidence, inherently more secure than VPNs (virtual private networks)."
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