Early next month, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors will vote on whether or not to approve the city’s deal with Google/Earthlink for providing the area with free wireless internet access. As the date gets closer, suggestions for alternatives to the project are brought to the forefront. The Fog City Journal reports that “Public Net San Francisco, a coalition of various community groups and Internet professionals, insisted that the City of San Francisco cancel the pending Google/Earthlink monopoly WiFi deal, and instead use the City’s existing high speed fiber optic network as the backbone to build a truly modern, fast, and free, public communications system.”

There are multi-faceted concerns about the Earthlink deal, including issues with the city signing on to a multi-year monopoly by one company. However, what most affects consumers in the area is the concern that the system would be slower than alternatives. The Examiner reports that a better alternative may be to connect all homes and businesses in San Francisco to an FTTP network. Such a project, which would cost approximately $560 million, has never been done in a city of San Francisco’s size within the U.S. but has been successful in some European cities. Although speed may be faster, one drawback is that connecting a full fiber network of this size could take up to fifteen years, whereas Earthlink’s citywide WiFi should be available in 2009.