SF Wi-Fi Plan Faces Key Votes
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San Francisco city officials could bring the city&#39;s proposed Wi-Fi network closer to reality at two meetings this week as a key leader proposes significant changes to the plan.
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SAN JOSE, Calif. - A proposal to blanket 1,500 square miles of Silicon Valley with affordable wireless access to the Internet stepped closer to reality Tuesday after a joint task force selected Silicon Valley Metro Connect to build and operate the network.
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Proposed municipal Wi-Fi network would be run by EarthLink, include Google service.
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By JUDY O'ROURKE  SANTA CLARITA -- The days of patronizing certain food or coffee joints to tap a wireless Internet feed may soon be past, with citywide access on the horizon.
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By Kris Hundley, St. Petersburg Times, Fla.  Sep. 7--On the day St. Petersburg took a giant step toward eventually  providing citywide wireless Internet capability, a familiar face said it was  already providing wi-fi capability, at least in parts of the city.
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Cities and towns are jumping on the Wi-Fi bandwagon. But a municipal model of connectivity may be tricky to pull off.
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A proposal for a wireless phone directory raises concerns in Congress.
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Two important votes concerning San Francisco's plan for citywide Wi-Fi that were set for this week have been pushed back, delaying what may be life-or-death decisions on the controversial network.
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High-speed Wi-Fi Internet access has been tested successfully on the BART subway in the Bay Area.
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(InfoWorld) - The sun came out for EarthLink's Philadelphia Wi-Fi network on Thursday even as prospects forÂ its San Francisco projectÂ remain shrouded in fog. Wireless Philadelphia, a nonprofit group formed by the city of Philadelphia, has approved the 15-square-mile Wi-Fi test network EarthLink built, opening the door for the operator to finish building out a 135-square-mile network covering the city. The approval comes just a month afterÂ EarthLink announced it would scale back its city Wi-Fi initiative, focusing on existing and large cities for the rest of the year. The company has seven or eight cities under contract now and is negotiating with five more, Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing Cole Reinwand said last week. It decided to stagger its Wi-Fi expansion to conserve resources, he said. Residents can already use the 15-square-mile network in Philadelphia. The full network is expected to be complete in the third quarter. EarthLink is financing, building, and managing the network and will share revenue with Wireless Philadelphia, which will offer cut-rate access for low-income people. For six months, customers of a 1MbpsÂ service will pay an introductory rate of $6.95 per month, which bumps up to $19.95 thereafter. A faster 3Mbps service is available for $9.95 for the first six months and $21.95 after that. City parks will have free access, and low-income residents can sign up for service at $9.95 per month, before promotions. Customers can also pay for service on an hourly, daily or three-day basis. The Philadelphia Wi-Fi network is notable because when announced, it set off a storm of controversy that resulted in a Pennsylvania law requiring municipalities to receive approval from incumbent telecommunications operators before building Wi-Fi networks. The law was created after incumbents complained that by financing Wi-Fi networks, cities were building networks that would compete with their businesses. The San Francisco project, which has drawn attention partly because of Google's planned involvement as provider of a free citywide service, has run into fierce opposition from activists as well as some local elected officials. The proposed contract is scheduled for a vote by the city and county's board of supervisors in July.
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Reuters has a story  about Gavin Newsom finally getting wifi and wanting to hookup San Francisco:  "SAN FRANCISCO  - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has set a goal of providing free wireless Internet activity in his city that sees itself as a vanguard of the Internet revolution."  ""We will not stop until every San Franciscan has access to free wireless Internet service," he said in his annual state of the city address on Thursday. "These technologies will connect our residents to the skills and the jobs of the new economy."  The issue I have is that I'm not sure my tax dollars need to pay for this.  I'm also pretty sure that the city will screw it up.  Why not just do this.  Allow ...
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Two key votes on the municipal Wi-Fi project have been postponed and a city leader wants to amend the deal.
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The city of Philadelphia has reached an agreement with Verizon Communications that will let the municipal government deploy a citywide Wi-Fi network, but a carrier-backed bill that would let incumbent carriers block such projects has been signed into law by Pennsylvania's governor.
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InfoWorld - An ambitious plan to equip Silicon Valley with wireless public broadband services is proceeding with great hopes but many challenges.
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Meraki, a wireless-networking startup, announced plans on Friday to deploy a citywide wireless network that will provide free Internet access for every neighborhood in San Francisco.
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An ambitious plan to equip Silicon Valley with wireless public broadband services is proceeding with great hopes but many challenges.The Wireless Silicon Valley project was the subject of a presentation at the MuniWireless conference in Santa Clara, Calif. on Tuesday afternoon. Expected to cost $100 million to $150 million, Wireless Silicon Valley involves developing an architecture covering 1,500 square miles. It would be used by around 40 cities in Silicon Valley, each of which has contributed $2,500 to seed the effort. While there are no officially defined boundaries, Silicon Valley is generally considered to be a span of California cities in the San Francisco Bay Area, including San Jose.The project's vision involves connecting anyone, anywhere, involving any device, said Seth Fearey, project lead for Wireless Silicon Valley and vice president of Joint Venture, Silicon Valley Network."We're going to move beyond the model of laptops connecting the Internet doing e-mail and the Web. We want to connect devices and things," Fearey said.The network would only function outdoors and provide capabilities ranging from citizen access to the Internet to provision of public services. Users would be able to maintain a connection if they linked up in Daly City, just south of San Francisco, and traveled to Gilroy 71 miles from San Francisco.Economic development is the top priority of Wireless Silicon Valley, with the idea being to connect small businesses, attract businesses, and make Silicon Valley an exciting place to be."People coming here for conventions would spend more money if they knew where to go," such as being able to find movie theaters via wireless access, said Fearey."We can use this network to help give them that information," he said.Benefits of the plan are to make a network that is much more useful and leverages economies of scale, one that deploys multiple technologies together, provides more revenue opportunities, and accommodates government staff.Challenges, however, include finding an owner/operator and operating on an unproven business model. Also, the network has a high cost to build and the needs of low-revenue areas must be balanced with those of high-revenue areas. The network also takes time to deploy."We're breaking new ground here," said Fearey. Investors want to see how the network will work and are struggling to determine how they will make moneyThe cities participating in the program are quite small, except for San Jose, Fearey said. "This is a big, big challenge," financially, he said.A request for proposal was issued, resulting in companies such as IBM and Cisco offering to provide equipment and Azulstar to operate the network. These vendors comprise the Metro Connect team that intends to provide the network infrastructure, own and operate it, and sell services. Azulstar, however, was not able to raise money to get the project moving. Now, additional operators are being sought.?The goal with the network is create lots of opportunities for the operator of the network to make money not just from consumer subscriptions and adverting but also from other services such as provision of point-to-point advertising.A variety of applications has been suggested, ranging from wireless reading of water meters to irrigation control and wireless parking meters that could have fluctuating prices based on the time of day.During an earlier panel session at the conference Tuesday, Joanne Hovis, president of Columbia Telecommunications, said that if Google acquires the 700-MHz frequencies to be auctioned off by the FCC, that could change the wireless market.Hovis noted there is much speculation about Google's plans. One audience member speculated Google could open up a wireless network for everybody.?"My personal opinion is I'm not sure Google is serious about bidding on that spectrum," Hovis said. It also would be a few years before Google could build its network, Hovis said.
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By Clint Swett, The Sacramento Bee, Calif.  Jun. 18--After more than a year of fits and starts, Sacramento is on the verge of approving a system that would blanket the city with free and paid wireless Internet coverage for both residents and visitors.