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Los Angeles City Wi-Fi and Beyond vision panel meets in Van Nuys, receives public input

Unwired LA #13

Van Nuys, California
February 20, 2005

By Marc Strassman
Reporter
Unwired LA
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Etopia Media News Networks

This page and its contents are copyright © 2005 by Etopia Media News Networks. All rights in all media reserved.

logo of the City of Los Angeles' Wi-Fi Community Network

What if they gave a meeting and almost no one came?

Between 6 pm and 8 pm on Monday, February 7, 2005, the Wi-Fi and Beyond Executive Advisory Panel appointed by Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn to develop a vision statement for the City regarding the deployment within it of wireless Internet access for all its people met at the Marvin Braude Constituent Service Center in Van Nuys, California and hosted a public forum to discuss the future of unwired Los Angeles.

The Braude Center was recently declared a "free wireless Internet access district" by the City of Los Angeles, as the flagship "hot zone" of its recently-launched (October 21, 2004) "Wi-Fi Community Network."

You can see the flyer announcing this public meeting, which, according to City of Los Angeles E-government Director Mark Wolf, was sent out to 2,000 invitees, by clicking here.

In attendence at the February 7, 2005, meeting were members of the panel itself, representatives of companies that do business in the wireless space, and very few members of the general public, the group that the panel's work is principally designed to benefit.

Mr. Wolf provided Unwired LA with a cassette recording of the proceedings of this public forum, which it is now making available online, in order to provide a second chance for those who missed the meeting to find out and hear just what happened there, to listen to what was said.



Wi-Fi and Beyond panel members introduce themselves .

Morley Winograd, executive director of USC's Marshall School Center for Telecom Management and chair of the Los Angeles Wi-Fi and Beyond Panel

This public meeting was chaired by Morley Winograd, executive director of the Center for Telecom Management at USC's Marshall School of Business and the chair of the Wi-Fi and Beyond panel. The appointment of Mr. Winograd and other members of the University of Southern California community to the Wi-Fi and Beyond panel was reported on November 5, 2004, in an article in the Daily Trojan.

The meeting began with Mr. Wolf setting out the charge given to the panel by Mayor James Hahn. He then introduced Mr. Winograd, who let the members of the panel present introduce themselves. You can hear those introductions by clicking here.

Several members of the Wi-Fi and Beyond panel have previously appeared as guests on Unwired LA. You can listen to their Unwired LA interviews by clicking on their names below.

Rich Grimes, EVP, Wireless Cable Partners, and member, Los Angeles Broadband Executive Panel
(interviewed again on Unwired LA here)

Todd Richmond , Managing Director, Annenberg Center for Communication, University of Southern California

Rajit Gadh, Director of Wireless Internet for Mobile Enterprise Consortium (WINMEC), at University of California, Los Angeles
(interviewed again on Broadband Wireless Access World here)

Thera Bradshaw, General Manager, City of Los Angeles' Information Technology Agency (ITA)


Several other parties are heard from .

These introductions were followed by presentations from the public, with occasional interspersed questions and comments from Mr. Winograd and other members of the panel. You can listen to those presentations by clicking on the name of those who gave them.

Steven Shroedl, President and Founder, VeriLAN

Doug Fox, Director of Business Development, 5G Wireless

Tony Esfandiari, CEO, Aiirmesh Communications
(previously interviewed on Unwired LA here)

Bob Johnson, part 1, Wireless Specialist, Western Area Enterprise, Cisco Systems

Bob Johnson, part 2, Wireless Specialist, Western Area Enterprise, Cisco Systems

David NwaChukwu, Communications Engineering Associate, Information Technology Group, LAWA

Marc Strassman, President, Etopia Media

Davis Park, Center Director, LTSC Community Development Corporation

Jim DeFreeuw, Senior Account Executive, Tropos Networks

Alan Horowitz, VP, networking division, Pacific Coast Cabling

Indicating that information about the next meeting of the Wi-Fi and Beyond panel would be available on the Unwired LA web site, Mr. Winograd adjourned the meeting.

To listen to the first part of this Wi-Fi and Beyond public forum in its entirety, click here.

To listen to the second part of this Wi-Fi and Beyond public forum in its entirety, click here.


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