Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Museum of Art, University Circle Inc. and two Case alumni-turned-wireless-switching-gurus have collaborated to extend the OneCleveland wireless program to cover all of Wade Oval.

Designed and implemented to coincide with the recent grand reopening of the oval, the availability of free public wireless services in the park located within Cleveland's University Circle extends what is already the nation's largest wireless cloud of connectivity.

Lighting up Wade Oval with end-to-end wireless coverage required a new, innovative technology solution. Case grads Ken Biba and Skip Crilly, founders of Vivato Inc., a San Francisco-based WiFi infrastructure company, provided what analysts call the first enterprise switches for WiFi deployments
for large indoor and outdoor coverage.

Biba, chairman of the board of Vivato, received a bachelor's degree in physics and a master's degree in computer science from Case, while Crilly holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the university's Case School of Engineering.

"Working with Case and the organizations in OneCleveland is exciting not only because they have an amazing vision but also because it is Cleveland and it's happening at University Circle," Biba said.

OneCleveland is a bold initiative supported by Case, the City of Cleveland, Cleveland State University, Cuyahoga Community College, the Regional Transit Authority, the Cleveland Municipal School District and WCPN/WVIZ's ideastream. The OneCleveland consortium is committed to deploying state-of-the-art digital infrastructure in support of community goals, including a healthy Cleveland, bridging the digital divide, access to cultural and art institutions, better government and public services and world class research.

According to Dell Klingensmith, interim executive director of OneCleveland, the partners intend to make wireless service available everywhere its fiber optical infrastructure extends.

"We have started in University Circle because there are actually thousands of miles of fiber optics in the circle," Klingensmith said. "This provides not only for unprecedented speeds to support leading-edge applications but also serves as the foundation for extending wireless services."

In the coming weeks, OneCleveland expects to light up additional services in University Circle as well as extend wired and wireless services across the region.

Return to the online edition of the 11-6-03 Campus News.

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