City Moving Ahead on Wi-Fi Plan

The city of Charleston is moving ahead with a plan to blanket the peninsula with wireless Internet access, drawing criticism from telecommunications companies that say the plan will put the city in competition with the private sector.

The city put out a request for proposals on June 8, asking companies to bid on a two-year contract to install and maintain a wireless fidelity, or Wi-Fi, grid over peninsular Charleston. Two companies bid on the work by the June 28 deadline, and City Council hopes to ink a contract for the project in the coming weeks. If all goes as planned, by 2006 downtown Charleston will be covered by a Wi-Fi "cloud" that residents and visitors with compatible computers can tap into free of charge.

Ernest Andrade, who heads technology-based economic development for the city, said a free Wi-Fi network is a powerful tool for business recruitment and a way to promote computer literacy among less-affluent households that don't currently have Internet access. "This is just another service that makes us that much more competitive," Andrade said. "It touches all sectors of business and it can help close the 'digital divide' to folks of lesser means."

However, Comcast Corp., a Philadelphia-based cable giant, said it was skeptical of the city's initiative when it heard about it Monday. "We feel like we're doing everything we can to make broadband available," said spokesman Reg Griffin. "To me, it would make more sense to look into other public-service opportunities rather than basically duplicating what the private-sector is alreadying."

Ted Creech, regional director for BellSouth Corp., declined to comment on the city's plan Monday because he said he was not familiar with the project. But Creech noted that municipal governments often underestimate the risks of Wi-Fi projects, including the costs of maintaining networks. Neither BellSouth nor Comcast bid on the city project.

One of the companies that did bid, Aerolina Inc., has already done a lot of Wi-Fi work in the city. Aerolina administers "Thinkspots," a cluster of small Wi-Fi networks subsidized by the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce. Aerolina co-founder Scott Adams said the city grid would not be a serious threat to private-sector market share. He noted that the cost of covering every nook and cranny of the peninsula would be "astronomical." Adams estimated that the Charleston network will cost less than $1 million.

The debate heating up in Charleston now has raged through communities across the country as more and more municipalities decide that wireless Internet access, like trash collection and road construction, should be a public service.

Philadelphia was one of the first cities to get into the Wi-Fi game. Last year, it announced a controversial $10 million plan to carpet 135 square miles of its urban footprint with a wireless Internet grid. Verizon Communications Inc., the dominant land-line provider in Philadelphia, denounced the project and said the City of Brotherly Love had no business being in its business. At Verizon's urging, Pennsylvania lawmakers passed a measure that made similar municipal plans illegal. In defense, Philadelphia noted that Verizon's Web services were too expensive for a large portion of the city's taxpayers. About 42 percent of the city's residents don't have Internet access.

The Columbia City Council touched a similar nerve in March when it voted to install a $150,000 Wi-Fi cloud over a segment of its downtown. Hank Fischer, BellSouth's executive director for the state, said the city was "stranding" private investment at the time. "In my opinion, this is a lot of 'me, too,' " Fischer said.

Andrade, however, said the Charleston plan is different because it will not use any tax dollars. The city said it has lined up private donations to pay for the project. "It's just a new private operator that enters the market," he said.

Corridor Note: The proposed provision of wireless internet services to peninsular Charleston is a pilot project that will be enabled by the City of Charleston but implemented by a private business entity with no financial subsidy from the City.