Long Island’s wireless Internet project, a $150-million Wi-Fi system to cover 750 of the Island’s 1,200 square miles without a dollar of taxpayer funds, is months past its initial target date and its future looks doubtful, says Newday.
Last August, Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy (right), who originated the concept, was joined by the Nassau County executive, Thomas R. Suozzi, in announcing the selection of e-Path Communications of Tampa, Fla., to build, own and operate the system. Although a pilot program was promised for January, there are no formal agreements in place and Suffolk CIO, Sharon Cates-Williams, last week announced she was leaving for a state job. She said the pilot project should now launch by midsummer.
This comes as the city council in Trenton, N.J., earlier this month rejected a $250,000 contract in which the city would be anchor tenant for the 7.5-square mile network E-Path pledged in November to build for free.
E-Path is also unlikely to meet a Thursday deadline to launch a pilot program in Delray Beach, Fla., said Guy Buzzelli, that city’s chief information officer.
Suffolk Legis. Wayne Horsley (D-Babylon), the co-chairman of the county’s wireless initiative, said he expects the pilot to be in place by early summer. “They’re ready to go,” he said. “My understanding is that the pilot is moving forward.”
But Suffolk Legis. Ed Romaine (R-Center Moriches) declared the Wi-Fi effort dead.
“It was a great idea but there’s a big difference between wishing and hoping and doing,” he said.
Municipal Wi-Fi efforts that lacked taxpayer funds have not fared well, said Craig Settles, an Oakland, Calif., consultant who wrote the book “Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless.” However, Wi-Fi projects in Minneapolis and Providence, R.I., succeeded with significant public funding or included a government pledge to buy access once the system was complete.
“The mind-set of providing a general consumer business,” said Settles, “is what’s doomed a lot of these projects from the beginning.”
Cities that proposed building municipal wireless Internet networks:
- Boston. OpenAirBoston.net launched its pilot wi-fi network in a couple of neighborhoods last week. The group originally planned to have the entire city covered by the end of 2008.
- Chicago. EarthLink-proposed system abandoned when the company eliminated its municipal Wi-Fi division.
- Houston. EarthLink paid Houston a $5 million penalty to back out of its contract to build a 640-square-mile wireless network throughout the city.
- Milwaukee. A proposed free-to-taxpayers Wi-Fi network built by a local company is years behind schedule.
- Minneapolis. Wi-Fi network partially built with city funds is operable and being used by local police and fire departments.
- Philadelphia. EarthLink planned to build a 135 sq mile Wi-Fi network although it’s stalled at 75 percent with subscribers of the $20/month service less than anticipated and expenses higher.
- Portland. Metrofi proposed building a city-wide WiFi network covering 134 sq miles with no city funding and providing free access (with advertising). Buildout has stalled at 25%.
- San Francisco. EarthLink rescinded its proposal last September to cover the estimated $14 million to $17 million cost of building San Francisco’s Wi-Fi network.
- St. Louis. AT&T’s wireless Internet network is up and running in one square mile of downtown St. Louis. Don’t expect to see a citywide system any time soon, though. More than a year ago, the company proposed a wireless network among the city’s 62 square miles, but AT&T and the city couldn’t find a cost-effective way to power the WiFi nodes. The citywide plan was nixed in October.
- Wireless Silicon Valley. The grandeous Wireless Silicon Valley vision of two years ago, reaching some 2.4 million people, was first scaled back to several test phases. Then, Azulstar, the startup that was to build and operate the network, couldn’t get funding even for two test networks, at about $500,000 each.
Wired Magazine has mapped hundreds of municipal wireless projects on Google Maps (above). Most are smaller cities and counties, where bureaucracies are less onerous and costs are lower. Here’s a pdf version (224k).
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