PeterCollins
join:2005-05-23
Geneva, IL
| I think it might help to be a little more clear on "municipally funded."
The funding model that MetroFi has laid out more recently required cities to be an anchor tenant. The cities still have no ownership of the systems. The simply agree to purchase services from a vendor to deal with their own mobile data needs. These contracts (at least the ones I've seen) are not exclusive, and if the service was spotty, the cities would have the ability to hold the vendor liable to QOS.
Calling these builds (MetroFi, Earthlink, AT&T) "municipal wifi" is a huge misnomer. They all use municipal assets via r.o.w. or pole attachment agreements, but they're privately owned and are no more "municipal" than Comcast or OOL are "municipal cable providers."
The only time they're really "municipal" builds is when the cities build the network (either themselves or through contractors) and OWN the assets.
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Peter I. Collins
Information Technologies Manager
City of Geneva, Illinois
pcollins@geneva.il.us
630.232.1743 |
