Chicago will soon solicit proposals for a WiFi Cloud, reports MuniWireless. Chicago’s Chief Information Officer Chris O’Brien said last week that the city will invite technology companies to submit proposals. O’Brien told aldermen that citywide installation would mean about 7,500 small antennas on light poles about every two blocks. He also estimated the cost of networking the city at $18.5 million.
The City will post a draft of the RFP at in the beginning of May, 2006, prior to final issuance of the RFP. According to their website:
“The City of Chicago has developed an initiative to make affordable broadband services available throughout the City. The City intends to issue an RFP in late Spring, 2006 to solicit proposals from private sector companies for the financing, installation and management of a Wireless Broadband Network for the City of Chicago.
Chicago is not seeking to create a municipally-owned utility, says Chicago’s chief information officer, Chris O’Brien (left) It will not own the network, nor will it maintain, operate, upgrade or support the customers who use it.
Of course there are wireless services already serving Chicago.
JiWire estimates the city ranks No. 3 nationally behind San Francisco and New York for Wi-Fi hot spots–locales like coffee shops. JiWire said Chicago has more than 500 Wi-Fi hot spots in Starbucks and other places, and more than 50 are free.
For businesses, TowerStream provides high-speed Internet access from its Point-of-Presence (PoP) on top of the 1,100-foot Aon Center (formerly the Standard Oil Building) in downtown Chicago.
TowerStream established a Wireless Ring over the city, allowing businesses within a 10-mile radius of the PoP to receive high-speed access. In addition to Chicago, TowerStream currently serves over 600 businesses in Boston, New York City and Providence/Newport.
Last July, the Chicago City Council’s Wireless Task Force met for the first time to begin soliciting public input on a proposed $18 million plan to construct a wireless broadband network. The Task Force has held several public meetings to consider technical, cost and public policy issues.
Whether Chicago’s wireless broadband network will end up serving the entire City or whether it will supplement the City’s existing Wi-Fi network already serving 79 Chicago Public Library locations are open questions at the moment.
Of course, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and Cingular offer high speed data over cellular in Chicago. They, along with phone and cable ISPs, may put up a fight. It’s happened before.
Nearly five years ago the city devised a plan called CivicNet that was intended to spread broadband service, explains the WCN blog. The city issued a proposal that would include getting connections to all city schools, libraries, police stations and more.
Vendors responded with several interesting proposals, but after a scorched earth advertising campaign by incumbants, CivicNet was never pursued.
This time it could be different. Motorola, home to Canopy (last mile), MOTOwi4 (Mobile WiMAX), Mobile Mesh (for public service) and Orthogon backhaul is headquartered in Chicago’s backyard.
One of these days Motorola may have to decide whether to buy or dump Tropos, their partner in many successful bids. No doubt, Moto’s got a MOTOwi4 Tropos killer in development. It could be just a matter of price or timing. Not that we’ve heard anything (we haven’t).
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