WASHINGTON-The City of Philadelphia officially announced Thursday that its unlicensed wireless citywide network will be built and maintained by a new nonprofit entity known as Wireless Philadelphia.
“Critical to the Wireless Philadelphia proposal is how this initiative will help conquer the economic and social disadvantage experienced by those without affordable access to technology, known as the digital divide. Government has long worked to ensure key infrastructure be made available to its citizens, such as the deployment of electricity and phone services. Philadelphia’s proposal will help low-income and disadvantaged individuals and businesses gain unprecedented access to technology,” reads a city statement.
Wireless Philadelphia will spend $15 million to install and maintain the Wi-Fi system to be deployed on 3,000 city streetlights. It will then become a broadband wholesaler to Internet service providers, which in turn will sell access to the system to end users. The ISPs will have a cap on how much they can charge.
The nonprofit also released a request for proposals to build and maintain the system. It expects to award the contract by late spring, with the first users hopefully accessing at least part of the system by the end of the year. Wi-Fi access points will hopefully cover the entire 135-square-mile area by the end of 2006.
“The Wireless Philadelphia Executive Committee has done an excellent job of building a plan to lay the foundation for Philadelphia as a digital city and to make broadband affordable for everyone. The benefits of this transformative technology are broad and far-reaching,” said Dianah Neff, Philadelphia’s chief information officer.
In addition to Philadelphia, Chicago has announced plans to study a municipal Wi-Fi system.
The telecommunications industry, including landline, wireless and cable carriers, have all come out against municipalities building their own broadband networks.
CTIA has also said that municipal broadband systems are not a good idea and could thwart the adoption of wireless broadband if they are unsuccessful.
