At 12:01 PM 11/17/2003 -0600, you wrote: >I'm sure many are aware of this, but wanted to post it here as well: > >CITYWIDE WIRELESS PLAN GAINING MOMENTUM >The Park Board has entered discussions with several telecommunications >firms to offer wireless Internet access citywide. > >As Scott Russell reports in the Southwest Journal >(http://www.swjournal.com), Park Board Commissioner John Erwin has had >"very promising" talks with three companies interested in setting up a >wireless network throughout the city using routers on Park Board >community centers and on city-owned property downtown. > >Erwin said the private firms would provide the infrastructure and >management expertise in exchange for a percentage of the profits. Users >would be required to pay a monthly fee for the wireless access. "We are >going into this with the hope that it would be significantly less than >any DSL service that is out there," Erwin said. "It would be another >option on the phone bill." > >The City Council last month agreed to work with the Park Board on the >project, which Erwin first proposed in August. He expects a Request for >Proposals to be issued by the first of the year. The wireless network >could be operational by late spring. So this amounts to little more than Minneapolis becoming another WISP that outsources all of its operations? Maybe they're viewing it as an opportunity to add some dollars to their annual income instead of building a community based infrastructure. There-in lies the difference between commercial WISPs and WUGs, as I see it. "If you're reading this, read it again." _______________________________________________ Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.tcwug.org tcwug-list at tcwug.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list