Wi-Fi nets are the new frontier -- but who's buying?

The next wave of tech is starting to break for the shore and Implex.net is looking like a pretty good surfboard considering its expertise with two of the most pressing civic concerns of the early 21st century -- how to offer citywide Wi-Fi and how to pay for it.

Whether your company is tech- or content-oriented, Minneapolis' (http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/) recent announcement had to have piqued your interest. The city council has released its request for proposals to "provide broadband IP data access services" (in this instance, read, "Wi-Fi") to the entire city. Visionaries see that Wi-Fi will soon compete directly with broadcast radio, television and even satellite transmissions -- and with a much lower cost in infrastructure. Welcome to the newest frontier.

Implex.net, with its focus on Wi-Fi -- and introduction of the world's first 'Wi-Fi on a Stick' mobile wireless service -- has studied the challenge of wiring entire civic populations since its inception. And, with the next generation of Wi-Fi here -- and more powerful -- the decision by Minneapolis provides an opportunity not seen since the auction of cellular telephone frequencies back in the digital dark ages. Is a municipal Wi-Fi network possible for Minneapolis' 390,000 residents and 55 square miles of land surface? Technically, yes, but bearing the cost of the build-out is the $15 million question.

The Minneapolis announcement was a straight line from the Philadelphia announcement of summer 2004, when that city's council announced a plan to offer low-cost wireless online access for its entire population of 1.5 million.

Minneapolis joins cities from San Francisco to New York to Chicago to Atlanta to Los Angeles that are talking about the possibility of creating their own municipal wireless systems.

Just as importantly, there is a Wi-Fi story right around the corner. Chaska, a Minneapolis suburb began offering city-owned and operated wireless access to all of its 20,000 residents across its 16 square miles about the same time Philadelphia made its announcement. Priced at $15.99 a month, the service signed up 20 percent of the town's households in its first month.

But, aside from technical difficulties, there is a concern about who will actually own these networks. Philadelphia, for instance, created a non-profit agency to run its network. A couple of California cities, Mountain View and Cupertino are being served by venture-backed start-up company, MetroFi. The service runs at broadband speed, about 1 megabit per second, yet costs significantly less than the $30 to $60 monthly fee for a DSL line from SBC or a cable modem from Comcast. It's even cheaper than an America Online dial-up account that runs at one-twentieth the speed.

Tempe, AZ., also relies on a private company, rather than building a city-owned or supervised network. On April 21, the Phoenix suburb's city council authorized construction of a municipal wireless system that will be owned and operated by MobilePro of Maryland. So far, it remains the largest municipal wireless system approved so far in the United States.

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