Today's round-up of metropolitan and hotzone Wi-Fi.
Seattle, Wash.: Coverage of the hotzone launches in two Seattle business districts appears in The Seattle Times and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Times article notes that city councilman Jim Compton's task force is easing towards muni fiber instead of muni Wi-Fi. It's unclear how the plan will shape up: leasing fiber on a wholesale basis to ISPs? A quote from a businessperson in one of the hotzones is classic: he doesn't want to have to kick out non-customers or lingering customers. But he doesn't already get laptop toters in his shop? He won't just because there's Wi-Fi. And cellular data will make lingering everywhere a problem.
Richfield, Minn.: The city of Richfield wants to hitch its wagon on nearby Minneapolis's plan to franchise a private firm to build out a city-wide fiber and Wi-Fi network with no municipal dollars at risk. There's a lack of basic accounting in the article, unfortunately, when talking about Chaska, Minn.'s network: "Chaska spent $763,000 on its system and took in $768,000 from subscribers, Devich said." You don't look at profitability of public or private businesses in this fashion. You have to look at non-cash expenses, depreciation and amortization, and so forth. You can't distill it into numbers that are quite that flat.
Outer Banks, North Carolina: A wireless ISP claims 15 square miles of coverage using Vivato equipment over the oceanfront community of Duck and surrounding areas.
Boston, Mass.: There's no Web link yet to the story, but Colubris sent out a release noting that their partners Single Digits and Ascio Wireless have set up free Wi-Fi zones in Boston's West Roxbury and Roslindale neighborhoods. The zones went live to coincide with the Boston Wi-Fi Summit today which has archived video of the day's presentation at the Vote John Tobin site. (This is not an endorsement; I don't even live on the east coast, much less Boston.)