Colorado cities to build wireless network
Despite all of the bad press muni WiFi has gotten lately (including this very blog), 10 cities in the Front Range area of Colorado are planning to build a shared wireless network.
The communities–Arvada, Boulder, Broomfield, Golden, Lakewood, Louisville, Northglenn, Superior, Thornton and Wheat Ridge–have signed a letter of intent with C-Com Affinity Telecom. BelAir Networks will be providing the equipment necessary to build the infrastructure.
The network will cover roughly 137 square miles and the respective cities say they will support the network. Whether that means they will act as anchor tenants is unclear, but that certainly seems like the logical next step.
As mentioned in the linked story, this could be the type of network plan that could drive muni WiFi in the future. It appears that building networks in the larger cities comes with too much baggage, bureaucracy, and red tape, whereby smaller communities, whether acting along or in concert with neighboring towns, can address the issue more directly and can work out the details in a much more streamlined fashion.
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