An ambitious plan to blanket Silicon Valley with wireless broadband is expected to dwarf San Francisco’s municipal Wi-Fi initiative, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
The proposed project (RFP) will unite cities in Santa Clara, San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties and stretch over 1,500 square miles when completed. Officials envision a primarily outdoor network that will benefit government workers, mobile corporate employees, residents and visitors in the greater Silicon Valley area. No public money will be used.
A coalition comprised of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, the San Mateo County Telecommunications Authority and Intel raised about $60,000 and issued a request for proposal this week.
The Task Force believes it will enable business development, improve government services, include applications for public safety and emergency response, and fill in gaps to affordable broadband services. The RFP prefers an “open network model” that is privately owned and operated but provides access to multiple service providers.
Wireless Silicon Valley is a project of Smart Valley, an initiative of Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network (pdf).
Formed in 2004, the Wireless Silicon Valley Task Force consists of the Information Technology managers and economic development managers at most of the cities and counties in Silicon Valley. In 2005, the San Mateo County Telecommunications Authority joined the Task Force, bringing with it all of the cities in San Mateo County.
Wireless Silicon Valley contracted with Intel Solution Services to provide assistance with the development of a Request for Proposal (RFP) for wireless services to cover all of Silicon Valley. The consulting team conducted a survey of the participating cities and counties to gather information on their expectations and requirements.
Jointventure.org has The Vision paper (pdf) and the Request For Proposals.
San Francisco politicians and the ACLU have asked the city to rethink its Wi-Fi deal with Google and Earthlink. San Francisco Supervisor Jake McGoldrick is concerned about how much actual public input there will be with the deal. Privacy advocates are raising concerns about Google’s plans to cover San Francisco with free WiFi, calling the company’s proposal to track users’ locations a potential gold mine of information for law enforcement and private litigators.
Google plans to use geographic data to match users with advertising so that they would see marketing messages from neighborhood businesses such as pizza parlors, cafes and book stores.
Suffolk County in New York is planning a 900 square mile wireless system to provide free WiFi to its 1.5 million residents. It would be one of the largest government-sponsored wireless networks in the nation, reports the NY Times.
The system would allow anyone, anywhere in the county to access the network, and would also be available to visitors, businesses, government agencies, institutions and groups. The county plans to issue a proposal for bidders in December, with a selection made by spring 2007.
“People could connect to the Internet anytime, any place,” said Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy, who proposed the plan. A private company selected by the county would build the system at no cost to taxpayers and finance it by selling Internet advertising or by charging a fee.
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