Seven bidders submitted proposals Friday (pdf) to bring affordable wireless Internet access to all 1,500 square miles of Silicon Valley, reports Mercury News.
Developed jointly with the San Mateo County Telecommunications Authority, the network project will cover 36 cities and other entities from San Mateo to Gilroy.
It could become the largest Internet hot spot in the country.
Companies that submitted proposals were Mountain View’s MetroFi and Cisco Systems, which was represented in two different bids, one with the Oregon-based wireless network company VeriLAN and another with IBM and the San Francisco non-profit group SeaKay.
VeriLAN hopes to build a wireless Internet network it can then lease to other Internet service providers and companies wholesale. Those ISPs would then be on the hook to provide Internet access to residents. VeriLAN has been in talks with Google, America Online and Microsoft to resell space on their proposed network, said Clive Cook, VeriLAN’s executive vice president.
Replies to the RFP came from:
- Azulstar, SeaKay, Cisco Systems, IBM.
- Blue Horizon Group (San Francisco, California)
- Community Wireless (Palo Alto, California)
- Fire 2 Wire / Ubiquity Broadband Communities (Carmel, California)
- MetroFi (Mountain View, California)
- Next WLAN (Los Gatos, California)
- VeriLan with Cisco Systems & others (Portland, Oregon)
According to the Mercury News;
MetroFi outlined a network similar to those it already operates in Cupertino, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, where it offers free service with ads and a $20-per-month subscription without ads.
VeriLAN, working with Cisco and other companies, hopes to build a wireless Internet network it can then lease to other Internet service providers and companies wholesale. Those ISPs would then be on the hook to provide Internet access to residents.
VeriLAN has been in talks with Google, America Online and Microsoft to resell space on their proposed network, said Clive Cook, VeriLAN’s executive vice president.
The ambitious plan to blanket Silicon Valley with wireless broadband is expected to dwarf San Francisco’s municipal Wi-Fi initiative, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Jointventure.org has The Vision paper (pdf) and the Request For Proposals.
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 to study the issue and issued a request for proposal.
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.
Related DailyWireless articles include Silicon Valley Cloud, Regional HotSpots, The $500M SafetyNet, Samsung WiMAXes Michigan and Community Mesh Developments.
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