We have learned from a conversation with “T” Belisle of Wireless Woodstock that perhaps Woodstock Early Bird — and the Village Trustees — should not think too poorly of the public access wi-fi organization over the issue of affixing wireless repeater boxes to Village lampposts.
Belisle says his group had every intention of asking Trustees for permission to mount their CISCO boxes and, in fact, had written a letter of request to be delivered to them. Unfortunately, word is the letter got stuck in a pile and was not able to get to the Trustees before a technician needed to run tests using the devices. Belisle says he contacted Municipal Manager Phil Swanson about the issue of the request and was told it be would alright to temporarily affix the wi-fi repeaters pending a decision by the Trustees. This information was not presented at Tuesday night’s Trustees meetings.
No disrespect intended, according to Belisle, who was not able to be at Tuesday’s Trustees meeting. He hopes the Trustees will continue to work with Wireless Woodstock to provide public access in the Village and places that devices might be mounted. He says the cost of cutting-edge technology equipment is high and the group is faced with the fast changes to wi-fi equipment going on in the industry. In fact that device affixed to the lamp-post is the “latest thing” and works well in a broader range but within a distinct “cone of silence” under the device itself, the signal is limited. Technology can be glitchy as Woodstock Early Bird is daily aware.
We have also learned that sometimes the reason we haven’t had Wireless Woodstock wi-fi access 24/7 in the Village is not really that complicated. It comes down to the loss of bandwidth due to shared use. The wi-fi signal itself comes from the Norman Williams Public Library. Due to programs running there and bandwidth needs of library employees and users, occasionally a simple solution to meet the library’s needs has been to simply turn off the device that provides Wireless Woodstock wi-fi access beyond the library.
However, that is the past. Let’s bring things up to date: Yes, one can now get Wireless Woodstock wi-fi access while sitting on a bench on the Village Green, albeit glitchy under “THE CONE OF SILENCE.” We saw several people using their laptops and phones yesterday afternoon and found out they had access via Wireless Woodstock. Adequate but not great. Wireless Woodstock is looking forward to being part of the Woodstock Digital Media Festival coming up on June 22nd-24th. (more on that soon…) “T” Belisle says of the Wireless Woodstock project (and others he’s got in the pipeline), “We just want to do good. That’s all I want: To Do Good!”
Julia Carlisle
Woodstock Early Bird 