Customer Case Study
© 2008 Cisco Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
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City Deploys Municipal Wireless Network
City of Moncton, Canada Provides Free Wi-Fi Access to Downtown Area
Business Challenge
The City of Moncton, with a population of around
130,000, is situated in southeastern New Brunswick,
in the heart of the Maritimes. It is one of the top ten
fastest growing metropolitan areas in Canada and is
known for its friendly atmosphere, rich cultural
scene, and exceptional quality of life. The city is
situated in southeastern New Brunswick, at the
geographic centre of the Maritime Provinces. The
community has the nickname “Hub City,” because of
its central location and also because Moncton has
historically been the railway and land transportation
hub for the Maritime Provinces.
The city knows that to maintain its strength in the future depends on attracting entrepreneurs and
technology-based businesses. To foster its image of a technology-friendly city and enhance its
attractiveness to business and citizens, the city decided to cover its downtown area with a free Wi-
Fi network. The challenge was that a free Wi-Fi network is not really free, so it had to be
implemented in the most cost-saving way and at the same time be able to support citizen services.
The network design also had to take into account low cost of operating the network and possible
future expansion of the municipal wireless network.
Network Solution
The city chose the Cisco® Wireless Mesh Network Solution as the basis for its municipal wireless
network for several reasons. The City of Moncton already had a Cisco network in place, which
could easily be extended through a wireless mesh deployment. A standard wireless network, in
which each access point is directly wired back to the main network, would have meant a lot of
additional cabling and installation cost. In a wireless mesh network, the network dynamically routes
packets from node to node. Only a few a