City holds out for ‘WIMAX’

Colorado Springs officials won’t pursue plans for a citywide Wi-Fi network and instead will wait for a more advanced wireless broadband network to be built as soon as next year, the chairman of a city panel studying the technology said Tuesday.

“I don’t believe citywide Wi-Fi networks are financially viable,” Gerry Geyer, chairman of the city’s Telecommunications Policy Advisory Committee, said during the panel’s monthly meeting. “The business case just can’t be supported. No vendor is willing to do the whole city without some financial help from the city.”

Three companies indicated in July that they were interested in building a citywide wireless network only if the city agreed to become a major customer or help finance the project, Geyer said.

The city is unlikely to make such a commitment as it faces budget shortfalls, he said.

Meanwhile, SkyTel Corp. shut down two pilot networks it operated for 1½ years in downtown Colorado Springs and near Chapel Hills Mall. SkyTel officials said the network didn’t attract enough customers to be profitable.

Several other cities, including Chicago, have scrapped plans to seek bids for citywide Wi-Fi networks.

And some major providers, such as EarthLink Inc., are pulling back on ambitious plans to build such networks, calling the business model “unworkable.”

Wi-Fi is used in restaurants, bookstores and other locations to provide wireless Internet access in a small area. Promoters of the technology envisioned using thousands of transmitters to cover the city.

Chicago instead is slated, along with Washington, D.C., to get a network built by Sprint Nextel Corp. and a partner later this year. The network uses “WiMax” technology that can cover entire cities with a handful of transmitters. WiMax is expected to be included in laptop and notebook computers and eventually digital cameras and other electronic gadgets.

WiMax generally makes more economic sense than WiFi, “but there are millions of devices that are already equipped for Wi-Fi, while WiMax users will need new cards or devices to connect,” said Berge Ayvazian, who leads technology researcher Yankee Group’s wireless broadband initiative.

Sprint plans to spend up to $5 billion to build a network along with partner Clearwire Corp. to reach 100 million Americans by the end of next year at speeds comparable to DSL and cable television modems.

Monthly prices are expected to be $20 to $60.

Kirtland, Wash.-based Clearwire plans to expand the network to the Springs, but hasn’t yet released a buildout schedule. The company hasn’t sought city help.

Clearwire thinks “there is pent-up demand for mobile broadband service that can go where you are without being tethered to a wire,” Ayvazian said.

The three companies that proposed to build citywide Wi-Fi networks here were Boulderbased Affinity Telecom Inc., Chicago-based Federal Signal Corp. and Fort Collins-based Front Range Internet Inc.

Sprint and Verizon Wireless offer wireless Internet access in the Springs to customers with laptop computers using special cards but at speeds that are generally slower than available from DSL or cable television modem connections.

AT&T Inc.’s wireless unit said in November it planned to have a similar offering this year but hasn’t yet launched the service.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0234 or wayneh@gazette.com

HOW TECHNOLOGIES MEASURE UP

Wi-Fi: used in restaurants, bookstores and other places to provide wireless Internet access in a small area. For a citywide network, promoters of the technology envisioned using thousands of transmitters with a range of 300 to 400 feet and costing $3,000 to $4,000 each.

WiMax: can cover entire cities with a handful of base stations that have a range of several miles and cost about $100,000 each.

SOURCE: Berge Ayvazian, chief strategy officer and wireless broadband initiative leader, Yankee Group Research Inc., Boston