What is Wireless Miami-Dade County?
Wireless Miami-Dade County is an initiative to create an environment throughout the county that is technologically appealing to citizens, school children, parents, visitors and businesses. The plan calls for blanket wireless broadband connectivity throughout the 2,000 square miles of Miami-Dade County.

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Why does Miami-Dade County need broadband wireless coverage?
Broadband wireless connectivity will provide a plethora of economic, social and community benefits to Miami-Dade County. Increased public safety and community communications, digital inclusion programs for underserved and disadvantaged citizens and businesses, educational programs and improved government services and reduced communications expenses all are very tangible benefits of having ubiquitous broadband connectivity. Additionally, having a technologically advanced community will make Miami-Dade County more appealing to business and tourism, fostering aggressive and sustainable economic development.

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How will Wireless Miami-Dade County meet the needs of the community?
The goal of Miami-Dade County is to build a collaborative broadband initiative – To enhance the community enabling new, richer, more compelling forms of communication. We will identify key areas or organizations to address in terms of connectivity. For example, custom service models and community portals will be created for Education, Social Inclusion, Healthcare, Nonprofit Organizations, E-Government Services, and Public Safety. The initiative will solicit the input and participation of key representatives from each of these important community segments.

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How will Wireless Miami-Dade County be funded?
No taxpayer funds will be used for Wireless Miami-Dade County. The county will be issuing a competitive procurement mechanism to solicit from the private sector the provision of the network infrastructure, as well as the ongoing operation and maintenance of the infrastructure. Private Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will have the ability to sell broadband access at dial-up prices over the wireless infrastructure, and various county departments and municipalities will lease access back from the service provider.

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Aren’t Cable and DSL broadband services already available in most of the county?
Even in areas where DSL and Cable Internet access is currently available, it is cost prohibitive for many residents and businesses. In addition, these wire line services do not support mobile broadband access, which is imperative for government usage, and is increasingly important for residents, businesses, business travelers, educational usage and visitors to our community.

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How fast will the wireless Internet access be?
Fixed and mobile wireless Internet access is expected to deliver approximately 3 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and 1 Mbps upstream, in order to handle the portfolio of applications which will be available on the network.

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How much will the service cost?
At this time, pricing for access has not been set. The system will, however, be accessible at roughly the price of current dial-up Internet access plans. In addition, social and digital inclusion programs will include discounted or subsidized access for low-income residents of Miami-Dade County.

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Do I need any special, expensive equipment to access the wireless network?
No. The Miami-Dade County Wireless initiative will be built around the 802.11, or Wi-Fi, or WiMax standard.  This means that any PC, personal digital assistant (PDA) or wireless device with Wi-Fi or WiMax capabilities built-in will be able to access the network outdoors. To connect devices within your home or office, there will be low-cost customer premises equipment (CPE) devices available. These CPE devices act as bridges to distribute the wireless connectivity reliably throughout indoor environments.

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Where will the service be available?
The Wireless Miami-Dade County network will eventually span the entire 2,000 square miles of the county. This means that fully 90 – 95% of the outdoor areas of the county will have access to the Internet via a standard Wi-Fi or WiMax connection, and all homes and offices in the county will have access to the connection via a low-cost CPE device.

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Will the network be secure?
The network will support varying levels of security, ranging from open public access in some areas to highly secure connections for public safety use. The level of security will depend on the applications being used, as well as the subscription package purchased. These independent user communities will be completely separate on the wireless infrastructure. Additionally, traffic traversing the network will be encrypted, protecting critical private data.

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