The city of Brandon considers village-wide Wi-Fi: The town will erect antennas, it sounds like (although that's not entirely clear), while a private company with fiber running through Brandon will operate as the city's wholesaler for ISPs. TelJet has its own fiber across 18 Vermont towns, which is a very interesting position to be in: they expect to erect or have antennas erected for Wi-Fi-based service to the home elsewhere in the state, too.
South Bend, Indiana: Downtown South Bend has Wi-Fi in a free pilot service. The County library cooperated with the city, a non-profit, and a private company. The newspaper article unfortunately spreads a mistaken idea of what's secure via Wi-Fi by suggesting: "Users may want to add protection software to their computers if they plan to use the service for purchases, online banking or other sensitive transactions." In fact, those kinds of transactions are perfectly safe if done via SSL to reputable firms or banks. The advice should have explained how to check whether SSL was in use, which, although more technical, would have been more accurate for those specific transactions. I would have said, "Don't check email except through a secure Webmail page" myself.
I wonder how many access points you can actually deploy with $50K -- 5-6? Maybe they will get a box full of rubber duckies. I can't help wonder if they are being taken for a ride.
["]The signal also works in a moving vehicle.["] This is the last thing we need besides women putting on their makeup and people reading the paper while driving.