Wi-Fi can be coming to a federal building near you — maybe as soon as December 2013.
“It’s an integral part of our lives,” said Carlo Moneti, project leader of the Syracuse Municipal Broadband Initiative . “It becomes a basic democracy issue that you have access to it. Otherwise, private corporations can control the information that flows through it easily.”
The Municipal Broadband Initiative a group that is pursuing a high-speed fiber-to-the-home network that reaches all homes and businesses in Syracuse. Moneti is getting part of his wish for broadband everywhere because of a bi-partisan Senate bill to put WiFi in federal buildings.
Sens. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Mark Warner, D-Va., introduced the Federal Wi-Net Act, which would require wireless Internet in all public federal buildings. The estimated cost: $15 million.
The nation has nearly 9,000 federal buildings, including the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of New York in Syracuse.
Dan McAllister is the chief deputy of operations at the U.S. District Court in Syracuse. The Internet alone has changed the way the court operates, he says. “It makes the court truly accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said McAllister.
With attorneys often using the Internet, he said, Wi-Fi will help the federal courts.
The court system has a history of improving technology, he said. A new electric court case filing system, for example, has helped the courts save time when looking for case files, said McAllister.
The Wi-Fi proposal is another opportunity to add more technology to the courts in this “digital age,” he said.
“We continue to use what’s available to us and continue to try to stay current to what technology is out there,” said McAllister. “You try to use technology available to make the most efficient systems and practices you can. At the federal level in the courts, we do a pretty good job with that.”
(Andrew Chernoff is a junior with dual majors in broadcast journalism and political science.)
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