The Sacramento city council approved a contract this summer to build Wi-Fi across 90 square miles of the city through a consortium, consisting of Azulstar, Cisco, IBM, Intel and SeaKay.
But Wireless Sacramento’s plan to blanket the city with free and paid wireless Internet access, has stalled reports the Sacramento Bee. Money problems. The consortia has been unable to line up funding for the $7 million to $9 million effort, says the paper.
The delay is the second for Sacramento and a further example of setbacks for cities nationwide in their efforts to deploy municipal Wi-Fi service. High-profile projects in San Francisco and Chicago were scrapped recently, and experts say more turmoil is inevitable as cities and the wireless industry search for reliable ways to finance the systems and then make money operating them.But Anne-Marie Fowler, who’s heading Sacramento Metro Connect, the consortium seeking to build the system, said she’s closing in on the nearly $1 million in credit lines and investments needed to get the first phase under way.
While Fowler acknowledged the difficulty, she said she’s been “making good progress” in lining up investors and a bank line of credit for the first stage.
Construction on that phase – bounded by the Sacramento River, 16th, H and R streets – was to have ramped up last month and been completed in December, with full city coverage by October 2009. But no work has yet begun, according to Sacramento chief information officer Steve Ferguson.
“At this point, we are being patient with them,” Ferguson said of Sacramento Metro Connect. “We want this to get done.”
Terms of the deal call for Sacramento Metro Connect to hang equipment from city light poles and other facilities to cover up to 95 percent of Sacramento with wireless Internet access. Connections of up to 1 megabit per second would be free, while Sacramento Metro Connect could charge between $15 and $50 a month for those who want faster connections.
To help provide revenue for Sacramento Metro Connect, the city has agreed to serve as an “anchor tenant” by buying Internet service at a 30 percent discount from the retail price.
This comes at a bad time for the Muniwireless conference in Santa Clara, this week, Oct 22-23 (schedule).
At the conference the 2007 State of the Market Report was released ($395). Muni wireless isn’t dead, it said. Novarum also ranked the top wireless broadband networks in a report released last week. They ranked the “Best of Wireless in the 1H of 2007”. Among the winners were Toronto OneZone for Best Overall Metro Wi-Fi Service and Earthlink Feather (in Philadelphia).
Wireless Silicon Valley (participating cities and vision), is one of the most ambitious municipal wireless project to date. It would unwire many Silicon Valley communities into a vast network. Conference attendees will get an update on the project’s status, goals and timetable.
The inland Wireless Sacramento Regional Coalition, which covers nine counties over a 12,000-square-mile area, including Sacramento County, hoped to provide wireless service to over 30 municipalities with a combined population of about 3 million. It would even be larger than the Wireless Silicon Valley Project, on the left coast, which planned to serve some 2.4 million people.
Onthemedia.org talks to CNET writer Maggie Reardon who claims Wi-Fi’s death has been exaggerated (MP-3). Meanwhile, Reardon reports San Francisco’s chief information officer Chris Vein said Monday at a panel at the MuniWireless conference that the city is simply “taking a deep breath” while it figures out its next step.
Related DailyWireless articles include; Sacramento Approves WiFi, SoCal Wireless: Toast?, MuniFi: What Now?, MuniFi: Not Dead Yet, Earthlink Restructures, MuniFi Holds Breath, Sacramento Approves WiFi, Vision for Silicon Valley: Cloudy, El Paso Unwired + Most of California, San Mateo: 1st Silicon Valley Cloud, Wireless SiValley: Mix & Match, Broadband Cities, New York’s 750 sq mile Cloud, San Francisco WiFi Dead?, Wireless Houston: Size Queen?, State-wide Wireless Broadband Access, Ten Cities Under Colorado Cloud, FiberNet for Calif Schools, Washington’s 1500mi Cloud, and Sacramento Regional Cloud
