The small, high-tech California town of Milpitas may wind up with three wireless networks: When I was growing up in nearby Fremont, Calif., my parents would say when we were on the highway, "Don't blink, or you'll miss Milpitas." The small city will have a for-fee EarthLink network across the city this year, while MetroFi will provide some advertising-supported free service by 2007. And as part of Wireless Silicon Valley, MetroConnect (Azulstar, Cisco, IBM, and Seakay) will need to offer Milpitas its services as well. MetroFi is quoted as stating they're not fully committed to Milpitas, while EarthLink says MetroFi might use its network rather than build its own, to offer their ad-supported service.
Given the contention issues caused by trying to run multiple overlaping WiFi networks at 2.4 GHz, it seems like it would be smart for providers to try and combine forces on the physical side of the network. The inherent physics of wide-area WiFi almost force network neutrality on you . . .