Thanks to Peter Fleck for sending me a heads up on the latest news on the Minneapolis Wireless Project.
According to TC Daily Planet, the City has covered about 95 percent of the outdoor space and hopes to be completely covered in March. Loring Park has been a challenging area since there are no great places to post signal broadcasters.
Right now 8,000 have signed up for service; they are expecting 10,000.
Peter also tracks a nice article on the benefits of the community-owned network. Any community that is looking into or pursuing a public network should check it out.
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The Minneapolis Wireless network is not a community-owned network. It is owned by US Internet, a private company. The City of Minneapolis negotiated a long-term contract for wireless services from this private company. This is different than other community-owned networks that are truly owned by a municipality.
By: Jason Baker on March 13, 2008
at 3:47 pm
Jason,
Thanks for your correction – you’re right it is owned by US Internet and that is a different way to go than having the municipality own and run the network. I’m sure (well hope) that approaching the vendor for a city-wide network allowed them to leverage some advantage but it is different.
Thanks! Ann
By: Ann Treacy on March 13, 2008
at 3:59 pm