[Cu-wireless] city-wide free wireless in CA

[Sascha Meinrath]

FYI:

Cerritos, Calif., Goes Wireless Citywide

Thu Dec 11, 8:21 AM ET

CERRITOS, Calif. - Browsing the Web from this Southern California city may
soon become an outdoor sport.

The first phase of a project to establish citywide wireless Internet
access is slated to begin next month. Ultimately, anyone with a laptop or
wireless (news - web sites) device will be able to surf the Web from
virtually anywhere in the city's 8.6-square-mile area.

Scores of wireless networking transmitters are being placed atop public
buildings, traffic lights and other structures to blanket the city.

The project is being touted by Aiirnet Wireless, its operator, as the
largest wireless networking, or Wi-Fi, deployment in the nation.

The city struck a deal with the company that allows Aiirnet to place
transmitters throughout the city for free, city spokeswoman Annie Hylton
said.

Cerritos, meanwhile, agreed to buy 60 subscription accounts, each at
$34.95 a month, for its field employees.

Brian Grimm, spokesman for the Wi-Fi Alliance, which certifies and
promotes the technology, said he couldn't verify Aiirnet's claim, but
noted Cerritos is the only city so far that has said it intends to
establish citywide wireless access.

Wi-Fi radiates an Internet connection that multiple computers within 300
feet can share at fast speeds. Wi-Fi hot spots have cropped up over the
last couple of years in coffee shops, hotels and airports in bigger U.S.
cities.

Some small towns, including Half Moon Bay, Calif., and Athens, Ga., have
started experimenting with Wi-Fi as a way to provide relatively cheap,
easy access to high-speed Internet.

The 51,000 residents of Cerritos, located 26 miles southeast of Los
Angeles, have not had DSL broadband access to the Internet because the
city is too far from the telephone company's central office. Cable
Internet access has not been an option, either, Hylton said.

Residents in Cerritos have asked city officials to find a way to bring
broadband to the city for some time.

"We're pleased that our residents will at last have an option for
broadband that will be more affordable than is currently available,"
Hylton said.