At the recent MuniWireless SV 2006 conference, municipalities learned that they can leverage their existing or planned municipal WiFi infrastructure by deploying a wireless fleet monitoring solution, according to Telematics Journal. In a presentation titled, “Municipal and Public WiFi Projects and Fleet Vehicle Services,” John Woronczuk, vice president of Marketing and Business Development for Netistix, explained that not only does the municipality benefit directly, but other commercial fleets within the city can also take advantage of the citywide network to deploy wireless fleet monitoring solutions for their own operations. Woronczuk says that fleets can lower maintenance costs, increase efficiencies, improve service and reduce the initial payback period, as the cost is spread across multiple business applications rather than the costly venture of installing private dedicated WiFi infrastructure. Netistix FleetPulse solution accesses these WiFi networks to securely transmit information from a fleet vehicle to a monitoring application at no charge. It is a cost-effective alternative to traditional cellular-based monitoring solutions, which require customers to pay monthly cellular airtime fees for the same data transmission, according to Telematics Journal. Several major cities throughout North America including San Francisco, Philadelphia and Toronto are moving quickly to develop "mesh" networks that run on the WiFi wireless standard. These networks can be constructed at a reasonable cost and, in turn, they can be used to provide Internet access to city residents. A copy of Mr. Woronczuk’s presentation can be downloaded at www.netistix.com.