February 22, 2006

Officials said yesterday Google and EarthLink have submitted a proposal to build a city-wide wireless (Wi-Fi) Internet network for the city of San Francisco.

Google's and EarthLink's bid was one of six San Francisco city officials said they received Tuesday evening.

Other proposals were submitted by MetroFi, Communication Bridge Global, NextWLAN, Razortooth Communications and SF Metro Connect, which is an alliance of SeaKay, Cisco Systems and IBM.

City officials did not release any details of the actual proposals or make them available Tuesday. They said a panel will review the bids and make recommendations by early April.

``Affordable Internet that is accessible to all San Franciscans regardless of geography or income is simply essential,'' said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in a statement. ``We must recognize that access to information is a fundamental government service akin to libraries or public schools.''

The San Francisco WiFi project started last summer when Newsom called for ideas on how to create an inexpensive wireless Internet network across the entire 49-square-mile city.

The idea was to make San Francisco a place where anyone could go online from anywhere in the city, whether they were sitting on a park bench with a laptop or in the comfort of their own home.

Esme Vos, founder of city WiFi tracking service Muniwireless in Amsterdam, said that more than 186 U.S. cities have announced WiFi proposals, up from just 122 in July.

Big cities such as Chicago and Houston have requested bids. EarthLink is building a network in Philadelphia that will cost at least $9 a month.

``WiFi deployment is picking up in cities, faster than I thought,'' Vos said.

In November, the San Francisco Department of Telecommunications and Information Services said 26 companies had responded to a preliminary request for information.

The department then set a 60-day period for the companies to submit formal proposals on how they would bring affordable wireless Internet connections to all San Francisco residents.

Google grabbed the headlines because it proposed to build a network for free. But MetroFi of Mountain View has a track record for creating so-called ``mesh networks'' that link a variety of WiFi antennas in a single network.

The city will post information about the bidders at www.sfgov.org/site/techconnect.

Source: Mercury News

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