Council Bluffs, Iowa, is rolling out free municipal Wi-Fi
WASHINGTON – Council Bluffs, Iowa, could soon become one of the first cities in the country to offer free Wi-Fi Internet as a public service to all of its residents.
The project, which began in 2014, started as a partnership between the Council Bluffs School District and the municipal government as a way to allow students to do school work that requires the Internet from home. Some students in the area, because of economic conditions or simple geography, lacked a home Internet connection. This is problematic in an era when schoolwork increasingly requires access to the Web.
Since its inception, the program has expanded to offer free Wi-Fi access to all residents and is managed by the Council Bluffs Area Wi-Fi Consortium. The Consortium is the result of a coalition among the city government, the school board, local businesses, and, to some extent, technology powerhouse Google.
Despite not being directly involved in the project, dataknowledge.com notes that Google donated $800,000 to the project. Google opened a data center in Council Bluffs in 2007 following $36.6 million in state and local incentives.
Google employs 130 people in Council Bluffs and, according to some speculative reports, has considered the concept of free Wi-Fi.
Several cities in the U.S. and Canada do have free municipal Wi-Fi networks, but most are limited to set geographic areas or are plagued by technical troubles. The Council Bluffs program looks to make universal access available to a mix of rural and urban residences in the medium-size municipality.
Council Bluffs maintains that the driving force behind the project is to better serve the city’s students. David Fringer, the school district’s CTO, told the Des Moines Register, “The city wants more of the public to have access and the schools want access for the students away from the schools. I think it will be beneficial for the whole community.”
Jill Ogg-Gress, a member of the school board said, “It is just an awesome thing. The possibilities are endless.”
As of June of this year, the city had received the equipment required to begin linking several isolated public hot spots together. KCCI 8 reports on its website that by the end of this year the city hopes to have finished the Wi-Fi rollout.
The Wi-Fi network will be accessible to anyone with a laptop, tablet, smartphone or any other Internet-ready device.
