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By Marguerite Reardon, 2 May 2006 09:15

NEWS

The number of cities interested in building their own wireless networks is on the rise but judging from the few cities that have begun offering service, deploying a citywide wi-fi network is more complicated than it may first appear.

Citywide wi-fi networks built and managed either in partnership with a private company or by a city have come into vogue in the past couple of years, despite strong opposition and aggressive lobbying by phone companies and cable operators, which argue that city governments would compete unfairly against their own broadband services.

Proposed networks in large cities such as New Orleans, Philadelphia and San Francisco have stirred the political pot even more. As a result, several US states including Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Nebraska and Pennsylvania have passed legislation to restrict cities from building these networks.

But many cities that want to provide affordable or free broadband access to residents have pushed forward anyway. Recently, federal lawmakers have taken up the cause on behalf of municipalities, including language in a bill which passed through the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week that will override these state laws and prevent further laws from being enacted that prevent cities from building their own broadband networks.

It is not surprising that cities wanting to offer their residents high-speed internet access would choose technology based on the IEEE 802.11 standard, otherwise known as wi-fi. Since wi-fi operates in an unlicensed band of spectrum, nobody has to dish out millions of dollars to buy access to air waves. And because wi-fi is so pervasive - just about every laptop sold today comes equipped with the technology - equipment used to deliver these networks is relatively cheap. What's more, putting radios on utility poles and lampposts is much less expensive than digging up streets to lay fibre-optic cable.

But getting a wi-fi network to work and meet users' expectations for speed and reliability is no easy task.

Gary Van Eyll, mayor of Chaska, Minnesota, a small city that started offering its service to residents more than two years ago, said: "We weren't as successful in the beginning as we thought we should have been. There were some problems with the initial set-up that caused some pockets of the community to run so slowly they couldn't even access the internet. My house is in one of those pockets, and it was frustrating."

Chaska, a town of about 8,500 households, has been offering wireless broadband over its wi-fi network to residents for $16.99 per month with download speeds of between 750Kbps and 1.2Mbps. Today, the city services about 2,500 homes and businesses, or almost a third of the town.

From the beginning the service worked well for about 75 per cent of the residents, said Dave Pokorney, city manager for Chaska. But for the other 25 per cent, the city's networks struggled to provide adequate signal strength. "We do see some variation in speed among customers," he said. "And that has been something we've struggled with from the beginning. At one time we were seeing people getting signals of 250Kbps, and someone six houses down was getting 1.2Mbps. That just wasn't acceptable."

About six months ago, the city upgraded all the radios in its network with newer models. Since then, Pokorney said service has improved dramatically.

While upgrades to the network were always a part of the business plan for the network, Pokorney admitted the city had hoped to keep its initial network installation in place for at least four years. But the initial lacklustre performance of the network forced the city to upgrade only two years into its four-year plan.

He said: "We would have rather not upgraded when we did. But at the same time, we are a little ahead of our subscription targets. So our revenue stream is a slightly better than we had expected. We're still comfortable with the idea that the network will be self-supporting."

Other communities deploying wi-fi citywide have experienced similar in-home performance issues. More than a month after it launched its citywide wi-fi network, some residents in St Cloud, Florida, complained that they weren't able to connect to the service from inside their houses.

The problems that residents in St Cloud have experienced are common in citywide wireless deployments, said Becca Vargo Daggett, director of the municipal telecom project for the Institute for Local and Self-Reliance.

The network works fine outdoors but when people try to access it from inside their homes, the signal is often too weak to reach them.

Vargo Daggett said: "Wi-fi in an outdoor setting is a proven application of the technology. But adjustments need to be made to make sure the technology works indoors."

Chaska offers residents a wireless bridge device that sits in their home and boosts the signal. The device comes as part of the $16.99 per month service. Since St Cloud's service is free, the city has recommended that residents buy a wireless bridge, which they can purchase at city hall for $170. Some of the residents complaining of poor reception haven't installed the wireless bridge, Vargo Daggett noted.

She said: "A lot of the problems and complaints can be solved by managing users' expectations, so that they are aware that some tweaking needs to be done."

Marguerite Reardon writes for CNET News.com