Civitium, the market-leading consulting firm for municipal broadband, has been retained to provide advisory services for the City of Chicago’s community wireless broadband project. Chicago, the nation’s third largest city, announced its intent in 2006 to form a public-private partnership to deploy a citywide wireless broadband network.
“Chicago has a goal to apply technology to grow its economy, increase the quality of life for its citizens and eliminate disparities in levels of education and income,” stated Hardik Bhatt, Chief Information Officer for the City of Chicago. “Civitium’s experience guiding the largest and most complex cities in this area will be of great value to further our goals,” he added.
The City of Chicago released a draft RFP (pdf) for a municipal wireless network last May.
In May 2006, Mayor Richard Daley had announced a plan to provide affordable broadband Internet service to all Chicagoans and to make computers more widely available to low-income residents. The Mayor also offered $250,000 in grants to help community groups come up with innovative ways to help close the digital divide, and appointed an advisory panel to make further recommendations.
Related DailyWireless articles include; Chicago: WiFi City, Chicago Issues RFP, Cloud for the Windy City and Firefighter SmokeNet.
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