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AT&T Gets Into Municipal Wi-Fi

Service provider has change of heart, wins contract to build network in Springfield, Illinois.

Network World staff, Network World

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AT&T this week won its first municipal Wi-Fi deal. The service provider has changed its stance and is now all for becoming a supplier of free, ad-sponsored fixed wireless service on municipal networks.

In the past AT&T has fought against municipal Wi-Fi networks, saying the subsidies offered by local governments provided an unfair competitive advantage.

Free and Fee-Based Services

AT&T says it is bidding on dozens of municipal Wi-Fi network contracts across the U.S.

The carrier's first such network is being built in Springfield, Illinois, and will offer residents up to 260-kilobits-per-second Wi-Fi service. AT&T will also offering a faster service, up to 1 megabit per second, for a fee.

Springfield's city council still has to approve the deal.

The Wi-Fi network will cover about 25 to 30 square miles and will be constructed by deploying transmitters on utility light poles around the city.

San Francisco, New Orleans, and Philadelphia are in the midst of municipal Wi-Fi deployments. All of these networks are being constructed by EarthLink. The ISP has been the most active in the municipal Wi-Fi space to date.

For more information about enterprise networking, go to NetworkWorld. Story copyright 2008 Network World Inc. All rights reserved.

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