WiFi

UrbanTulsa reports Free WiFi for the city of Tulsa was at the top of the list of projects to consider pursuing when the Young Professionals of Tulsa formed last year. But high infrastructure and maintenance costs loomed, and when the effort lagged, the private sector beat them to it. YPTulsan John Gaberino said another member of the group had attempted to bundle the request for start-up money in a larger application for Vision 2025 funds downtown. But the effort failed, and now three private investors have put together at least a quarter-of-a-million dollars in investment money for the first batch of units alone. Eventually, phase one will include 150 units in addition to the 75 now in place at $3,500 a piece--units that Trevor Langham, Tulsa Metronet’s CEO and one of the three investors, says are currently the strongest in WiFi capability.

The initial coverage area will include Yale Ave. to the Arkansas and I-244 to approximately 51st Street, the units affixed to power poles around the city. That means within that area, at $25 a month, customers can launch their browser anywhere they choose with little interference.



“That’s not much more than normal dial-up,” Gaberino said. “It’s less than most broadbands.”

But also a LOT slower than most broadbands.

While Gaberino said a member of the group had discussed whether the effort should be provided free by the public sector, he said he was less concerned with who implemented WiFi, and more concerned with when it was implemented.

In other words encourage SBC to get in and start charging for it, and that will kill plans to offer it for free.

Langham said the design and plan of the technology had been in place for about two years, but the technology itself hadn’t fully developed until eight or 10 months ago. He established an IT consulting company last January when he left a 10-year stint in the Williams family of companies. Meanwhile, he watched as municipalities across the country slowly began to establish citywide WiFi through public/private partnerships. “I thought, ‘if they can do it, we can do it,’” Langham said. “One of my partners (whom I already had through the consulting business), he said, ‘I think this will be a great thing for Tulsa. Looking at the demographic, Tulsa is pretty high-tech.’” San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Spokane, Wash., Boston and Cerritos, Calif. and even Oklahoma City are either in the process of establishing a citywide WiFi network, or they’ve already done so.

BatesLine blogged That could be a good deal, if some sort of roaming privileges come with it. With SBC DSL, you have access to the dialup network as a backup, or when traveling, and for an extra $2 a month, you can connect at WiFi-equipped McDonald's, Barnes and Noble bookstores, and UPS Stores. If you're tethered to the home area, you're losing one of the advantages of wireless computing.