The City of San Francisco’s citywide wireless municipal network has identified Google and EarthLink as the best candidate for the ambitious city-wide WiFi project, reports the Associated Press.
The recommendation, completing a six-week review, allows the city to begin negotiations with Google and EarthLink, which decided to team together earlier this year after initially bidding against each other. The companies will pay to build the entire network, which is expected to cost at least $15 million.
The city’s five-member review panel ranked the EarthLink-Google package as the best deal for San Francisco, followed by MetroFi and the partnership that included Cisco and IBM, said Chris Vein, director of the city’s technology department. Proposals were submitted by MetroFi, Communication Bridge Global, NextWlan, Razortooth Communications and SF Metro Connect, which is an alliance of SeaKay, Cisco Systems and IBM.
According to the press release:
“San Francisco has undertaken a thorough, innovative, and transparent process to reach an audacious goal: free wifi for our residents,” said DTIS Executive Director Chris Vein.
“By undertaking two competitive processes, we asked the citizens of San Francisco what they thought we should do and we asked the best and brightest technical minds what they thought we should do. Today’s announcement will take us one step closer to making universal and affordable broadband a reality.”
EarthLink envisions charging roughly $20 per month for the ability to surf the Web at speeds four to five times faster than Google’s free service, expected to be financed with a heavy dose of ads.
Atlanta-based EarthLink is taking the lead in the final contract negotiations with San Francisco, but Google’s involvement is attracting the most attention, says
The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) says:
San Franciscans have the right to a network that respects privacy and autonomy, one that allows users to explore what the Internet has to offer, including information about medical conditions and the use of online banking, without fear of government or commercial surveillance and intrusion.
In the summary here, we compare the six proposals against a model standard of privacy rights. This comparison only judges the proposals on privacy rights; other important interests, such as bridging the digital divide, reliability in service, and quality of service, are not considered.
