Update on City-wide Wi-Fi Networks

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1. Municipality planned networks (both wired and wireless) in cities and towns in the United States will probably only reach about six million people within the next five years.

2. Most city-wide networks are farmed out to third-parties that pay for the deployment and management.

3. Free access translates to showing advertisements. Setting up an effective ad-sales operation is costly, which requires even more money (a lot of it, actually) and also lots of expertise.

4. Maintenance problems of citi-wide Wi-Fi netowrks in the example of Chaska, Minnesota. Backbone upgrade and AP upgrade to 11g are both costly as the first installation. Operation is another issue.

5. Wireless isn't the first thing incumbents think of when they consider expanding their footprint," "They do cable."

6. Even with close to 200 metro-scale networks in the U.S., most are in small cities and towns. Not a single big city has deployed a city-wide network yet, not even Philadelphia.