CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas-Tropos Networks announced its largest deployment to date with the City of Corpus Christi, Texas, under a contract worth approximately $600,000.
Tropos will initially deploy equipment across 18.5 square miles of the city in a pilot phase. That network will use 300 Tropos 5110 Wi-Fi cells. The city plans to extend the network to cover Corpus Christi’s entire 147-square-mile area by the end of March 2005.
Tropos’ next-largest deployments covered 16 square miles in Chaska, Minn.; 13 square miles in Lafayette, La.; and 9 square miles Cerritos, Calif.
The Corpus Christi network will be used by public utilities, mainly for automated mater reading, as well as for police and fire department use. The city expects to garner cost savings from the service because utility personnel will no longer be needed to visit meters to record usage. Additionally, customers will be able to access and track their usage via a city Web site.
In other citywide mobile network news, MeshNetworks Inc. this week announced it partnered with NOW Wireless to deploy its mobile broadband solution in Portsmouth, England, in an effort to promote the city’s transportation system. With the solution, passengers can view real-time arrival and departure information at 45 locations, including 36 bus stops and nine kiosks, throughout the city.
