Fremont, Calif., may have Wi-Fi metro-scale provider within two months: I'll take a stab and say (without any inside knowledge) that MetroFi is the undisclosed company that wants to install service at no cost to the city. MetroFi covers Cupertino, Sunnyvale, and Santa Clara in the southwest bay. Fremont is pure east bay (and my former home as a youth), and would be a good high-tech area to add. Fremont is treading carefully: the local utility threatened to sue them when Metricom went under and left their radios on poles! I never heard about that threat. Fremont went out and removed the radios, worthless once unmounted.
Glen - I worked and lived in Fremont too. Nice city. Regarding city wide WiFi: My personal experience is that it is great for public access but not so sure about city mission critical laptop users. Furthermore, as soon as city officials here about WiFi (in 802.11 flavor) all of a sudden they say something like "We do have wireless capability within City Hall on a limited basis, to expand it throughout the city where folks out in the field would have access with their laptops. It's a much more efficient way of doing things."
Here's the question: Is the unlic. 802.11 WiFI network the appropriate use for "city mission critical laptop users"? I am not so sure. Fine for normal email access through a VPN. Not so sure for mission critical. And city fathers probably don't know the difference.
More discussion needs to take place around this.
Just a few thoughts.