Woodstock Early Bird was planning a post to update you on the movements of the Wireless Woodstock repeater with which we have become fascinated. Now we have a reason to do so:
The Village Trustees Tuesday night essentially said “No so fast, boys, with the placement of your wireless repeater.”
Trustees ruled that the Wi-Fi repeater, now affixed to a Village Green lamp-post, must be taken down. They flipped through many pages of ordinance to find the rule of law that devices such as the one appearing in our photo are not allowed to be affixed to Village Green lamp-posts. No if’s, and’s, or but’s: The box has to come down.
The Trustees did not address the issue of the previous placement of the device on the Village Green shed.
Wireless Woodstock apparently undertook their signal amplification experiment project without asking the Village Trustees for permission. The Village Trustees don’t really like that. As one trustee commented last night, “It would have been nice if they’d asked. ”
What Woodstock Early Bird still doesn’t understand is why Wireless Woodstock is trying to provide this much-needed public service (public access wi-fi in the Village) with such a bad product. We totally support their effort and their aim at making sure people “get” that Woodstock is a “with-it” town interested in providing a great overall experience to tourists, business people and locals alike.
But, the product is consistently useless wi-fi even from a proximity of 25 feet. It’s almost more embarrassing than having no wi-fi at all. Like opening a new trendy boutique hotel with “dial-up” internet service. In an experiment, Woodstock Early Bird accessed Woodstock Wireless wi-fi from the very lamp post signal box featured in the photo. We got signal, we were able to access the internet. So success, right? What is she talking about? Yup. Then, moments later, crash. Not enough strength. Bars down to two. And…we’re done!
We understand the Wireless Woodstock is aware of its issues and trying to move forward to improve and expand the signal, hence the new pole positioning box. However, several Village Trustees (Eric Nesbitt and Bob Pear) have offered access points from the roofs of their private homes in order to help this project and provide more area coverage. They say Wireless Woodstock has not been interested.
It seems to Woodstock Early Bird that a solution might be to have Wireless Woodstock folks just “raft-up” with the Fiber Optic folks and get on board to provide the fastest and most bandwith available. No boxes. No antennae. No launch pads. Bury that stuff underground! Just like Mr. Rockefeller did. We think of our Village’s former “Patron Saint” on this topic due to his broad role as an early champion of aviation and computer technology (PANAM, Apple) and his more specific role to Woodstock as a champion of aesthetics (burying the telephone and electric lines underground in order to preserve the charm of central Woodstock Village).
Beauty and Technology! Ahhhhh. Lovely!
Julia Carlisle
Woodstock Early Bird 