The city of San Francisco selected EarthLink Inc. and Google Inc. to jointly build a Wi-Fi network for the city.
“We are thrilled that the San Francisco TechConnect Committee has selected the EarthLink proposal, and we look forward to taking the next step to negotiate a contract to build a municipal wireless broadband network,” said Donald Berryman, executive vice president of EarthLink and president of the company’s municipal networks business. “San Francisco is one of the most progressive cities in the world and our combined offerings with Google, Motorola and Tropos Networks will stretch the possibilities of what a mobile network can do for residents, businesses, municipal government and visitors. We look forward to getting started in building a solution that will bring the incredible possibilities to reality.”
Last year EarthLink and Google submitted separate proposals for San Francisco ‘s Wi-Fi network. Then, in February, the companies jointly submitted a proposal that suggested a Google-managed, ad-supported free network alongside an EarthLink-managed fee-based service.
“Both the city and Google are better off now that Earthlink is part of that team,” noted Craig Settles, author of “Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless.” “Now the city needs to establish provisions in the contract for quality of service, network innovation, as well as privacy and security issues.”
Google plans to build an advertising-funded Wi-Fi network for its home town of Mountain View, Calif., and EarthLink has been selected to build a network in Milpitas , Calif.
Last October, EarthLink won Philadelphia ‘s contract for a 135-square-mile citywide Wi-Fi mesh network. In that deal, EarthLink will provide the infrastructure for the massive hot spot, relieving the city of raising the estimated $20 million that it would have needed to build and maintain the network.
In fact, EarthLink said its proposal states that no city or taxpayer dollars will be used to fund the project. EarthLink will finance, build and manage the wireless network and provide Wireless Philadelphia with revenue-sharing fees to help support the Wireless Philadelphia Non-Profit Corp. For its investment, EarthLink will provide the city government, schools, and other entities with wireless Internet access while charging about $20 per month for private access and about $10 per month for low-income residents.
EarthLink is also a contender for Portland ‘s Wi-Fi business, but the city has also been in talks with MetroFi and VeriLAN to build a citywide, privately funded Wi-Fi network. MetroFi is rumored to be the frontrunner in Portland; the company already provides free Wi-Fi in northern California using SkyPilot gear. VeriLAN has used equipment from Vivato to build smaller networks in Portland, but the company wants to use dual-radio mesh technology from Cisco Systems Inc. for Portland ‘s citywide deployment
Portland city officials said they plan to name a contractor this spring and hope to see network construction begin shortly thereafter.
