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October 29, 2005

Many Companies To Bid on Portland, Ore., Network

By Glenn Fleishman

Qwest is among the companies that expect to turn in a bid by Monday’s deadline: The largest city in Oregon spreads out in many directions—they added an urban growth boundary a bit too late—and has successfully been turning the city proper and the city center back into a desirable place to live. A municipal Wi-Fi network is another key, the cities thinks, to making the town more appealing to residents and business. The city also wants to reduce its own telecom bill and interact with parking meters wirelessly.

EarthLink, buoyed by two big wins in Anaheim and Philadelphia, is a bidder. MetroFi (Santa Clara, Cupertino networks) and VeriLAN (Portland) are also trying for the bid.

The Oregonian newspaper notes that Qwest is an odd bidder because it’s been suing the city over various telecom matters for years, including government-sponsored competition in telco.

Update: Qwest didn’t bid.

Tuesday update: Six bids were received: EarthLink, MetroFi, VeriLAN, MobilePro, US Internet Corp., and Winfield Wireless.

Posted by Glennf at October 29, 2005 11:47 AM

Categories: Municipal

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