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December 3, 2006

Metro Round-Up: Portland (Ore.), Grand Rapids (Mich.), Columbus (Neb.)

By Glenn Fleishman

Peeps on the Portland network: Mike Rogoway, reporter for The Oregonian newspaper, has word from the city of Portland’s coordinator on the project, that parts of the network are lighting up. MetroFi has posted a map of its current access point locations.You can see the density in downtown (lower left of map), and around some popular streets and neighborhoods east of the Willamette. (That’s WILL-am-ett, if you want to not sound like an out-of-stater.) Rogoway will write more about this in Tuesday’s paper, he says.

Grand Rapids votes on Clearwire proposal: Under the deal, Clearwire would gain access to municipal facilities for placing equipment. In other cities, Clearwire is a non-exclusive, non-franchised vendor using normal real-estate rights processes to place its antennas and hardware. The city council is voting on the proposal, which would require offer the least-advantaged five percent of households in the 45-square-mile city with discounted $9.95 per month accounts. Clearwire would also, unique to this rollout, set up Wi-Fi hotspots around town.

Columbus newspaper skeptical of rapid Frontier deal: The paper writes in an unsigned editorial that despite the attractiveness of Frontier Communications bringing in Wi-Fi citywide, that normal practices shoudn’t be abandoned. They want the city to charge a franchise fee, open the proposal to bid by other vendors, and disclose what rates would be before signing a deal. The city administrator produced a memo for the mayor and council on what the deal comprises.

Posted by Glennf at December 3, 2006 3:24 PM

Categories: Metro-Scale Networks, Municipal

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Posted by: Karl at December 3, 2006 6:22 PM

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