Chicago scraps city Wi-Fi plan – WiMax in the works
An ambitious plan to blanket the city with wireless broadband Internet will be shelved because it is too costly and too few residents would use it, Chicago officials said Tuesday. Meanwhile, Chicago will be among the first three cities nationwide to have access to a new high-speed wireless network that’s part of an emerging technology called WiMax. This is a blow to Wi-FI and a win to WiMax!
The plan to blanket Chicago’s 228 square miles with wireless Internet access was announced early last year when Chicago leaders said they hoped to become one of the largest cities to offer all-over access to the Web. Instead, the city said its negotiations with private-sector partners, including EarthLink Inc., have stalled because any citywide Wi-Fi would require massive public financing. The city had hoped to provide only infrastructure for the network.
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