The evolution of city wide wi-fi networks in four major U.S. cities

By Isidoros Passas on 8 December 2008. Posted in Digital Cities / Cyber Cities

In his latest article Andrew Lavallee in the Wall Street Journal describes the latest situation on the implementation of citywide wi-fi networks in four major U.S. Cities.

Minneapolis is considered a success story and already plans to invest another $1 million. In Oklahoma the network is not yet available to the residents although is used as a backbone network to support city cervices. In San Francisco after the failure of the attempt of Earthlink and Google, Meraki Inc. is trying to develop a city wide wi-fi network in a different approach, by passing the municipality bureaucratic processes and requiring the assistance of the residents. In Philadelphia the project was saved after a private investor put its own money on the project by acquiring the network, and providing freely the service only in public spaces.

You can read the full description of each case in the article of Andrew Lavallee in the Wall Street Journal here