The Milwaukee City Council approved an agreement with Midwest Fiber Networks to build a $20 million city-wide wireless broadband network last November and have finalized negotiations. The Milwaukee BizJournal says the system will be up and running in 18 months, with a demo area west of downtown running in 4 months.
Midwest will build and maintain the citywide wireless network—at no cost to taxpayers. In fact, Midwest Fiber would pay fees to the city to lease rights of way on city-owned facilities such as buildings, streetlights, traffic signals and underground conduit on which to place wireless network hardware.Midwest Fiber’s model would feature an “open network,” meaning any service provider would be able to negotiate with Midwest Fiber to lease bandwidth on the network.
Most users would pay about $20/month and as low as $10 for low-income users. In addition to EarthLink, other Internet providers would be able to buy space on the system from Midwest Fiber Networks and offer their products to customers.
Milwaukee has a leg up on many cities because it has so much underground cable – some 550 miles of conduit. Some of that underground system has already been updated with fiber, which is used to feed the wireless network.
No telecommunications company has been more active in Wisconsin than SBC, which spent 28% of the money for lobbyists and 35% of the campaign donations coming from the industry. SBC also ranked first in both categories nationally, according to The Center for the Public Interest, based in Washington, D.C., which did a three-year study of the telecommunications industry’s impact on state legislatures.
Midwest has been keeping its hardware architecture low key — we haven’t found any info on the web (yet).
According to Muniwireless, at least 125 cities and counties already boast sizable wireless broadband networks – 60 in the United States and 65 outside the U.S.
High-profile cities currently include San Francisco, Philadelphia and Houston, but the “2006 Muni Broadband Outlook” from Light Reading, also mentions cities like Akron, Anaheim, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Los Angeles, Lompoc, Miami Beach, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New Orleans, New York, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Ore., Sacramento, Santa Clara, Spokane, St. Paul, St. Cloud, Florida, Seattle, and Tempe.
