Chicago has failed to reach agreement with either at&t or EarthLink, each of which had proposed building a municipal Wi-Fi network for the city. Just a few years ago, backers were arguing a business case could be made for either ad-supported free service or for-fee service at rates of $20 a month. But that was before U.S. telephone companies got serious about broadband pricing and dropped access costs behow $20 for service very comparable to what muni Wi-Fi networks were supposed to offer.
at&t charges $20 a month for speeds of 1.5 megabits a second in Chicago and will provide connections half that fast for $10 to new subscribers. In other cities such as Houston, an 800 kbps connection can be purchased for about $15 a month.
In Lompoc, Calif., the city signed up fewer than 500 users out of a population of more than 40,000.
So it looks like we are nearing the end of the muni Wi-Fi craze. Though some networks, primarily for public safety and municipal operations, might still be viable, it doesn't appear that most municipal Wi-Fi networks will prove commercially viable outside high-density urban cores.
And even there, how hard is it to find a T-Mobile hotspot at a Starbucks?
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