Wi-Fi for the Masses

People looking to relocate or planning a sight-seeing trip to a metro area may be adding another item to their checklists: Does the city offer wireless access?

Increasingly, the answer will be yes.

This month, San Francisco and New Haven, CT became the two latest major U.S. urban areas to take another step toward providing Wi-Fi ("wireless fidelity") connections. They’ve submitted requests for proposals from technology companies and hired consultants.

And Philadelphia — the first major urban area to initiate a city government-led wireless program — just announced that it has narrowed its search for an Internet provider to two finalists: Earthlink and Hewlett-Packard. The service will be rolled out in "mid-October," according to Dianah Neff, CIO of the city of Philadelphia.

Indeed, approximately 300 U.S. cities and municipalities are now in various stages of wireless rollouts — up from barely any just a year and a half ago.

Greg Richardson, founder of Civitium, an Atlanta-based organization that assists cities in their Wi-Fi efforts, sometimes uses the word "crazy" to describe this phenomenon.

"Last year we saw a lot of small communities testing and piloting. This year there’s been an increase in the number of larger cities, and the speed with which they go through this process," Richardson says. "Cities are becoming smarter about this, becoming more efficient about the process."

By Eric Hellweg

Full Story: http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/08/wo/wo_081905hellweg.asp?trk=nl