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SF Releases Proposals: Two Free Wi-Fi City Network Offers

San Francisco city officials have publicly released the responses they received to their Request for Information and Comment (RFI/C) on the proposed construction of an affordable wireless Internet network to serve the entire city.

San Francisco city officials have publicly released the responses they received to their Request for Information and Comment (RFI/C) on the proposed construction of an affordable wireless Internet network to serve the entire city.

In addition to the well publicized proposal from Google to build a citywide Wi-Fi network at no cost to the city, one that would give residents and visitors 300 kilobits per second access for free, the city received an offer from another Mountain View company, MetroFi, to also build the network at no cost.

And similar to Google's proposal, MetroFi offered free advertiser supported Internet -- 1mbps downstream and 256kbps upstream access to everyone living and visiting the entire 49 square mile city and county of San Francisco, provided they agree to keep a small advertising window open on their computers. Alternatively, subscription services for $19.95 or less a month would provide 1mbps symmetrical, secure, portable broadband to every home within the city limits. And the company would give free broadband in community centers and senior centers in the low-income areas. To service the entire city, MetroFi would deploy a dense network of 1,400 nodes with network capacity in excess of 1Gbps.

Google's eight-page proposal is heavy with their corporate philosophy but sparse on technical details. The Web search giant said it would team up with San Diego-based WFI (Wireless Facilities, Inc.) as the company that would actually design and deploy the network. WFI is described as an independent provider of systems engineering, network services and technical outsourcing for the largest wireless carriers, enterprise customers and for government agencies. "For more than a decade, leading wireless carriers, equipment manufacturers and service providers have trusted WFI's engineering professionals to design, deploy, optimize and manage their critical networks," Google said in its proposal.

Google plans to finance the free access with ultra-targeted advertising. "Now mom-and-pop local shops will be able to specifically target affordable advertisements to Wi-Fi network users within a few-block radius,'' the company said in its proposal.

MetroFi Gives Details
On the other hand, MetroFi presented a detailed blueprint, complete with maps, diagrams and other technical details, of exactly how it would go about building a network capable of serving all of the city and county of San Francisco.

"The ideal way for the city to move forward aggressively is a public-private partnership which reduces the risk to this bold initiative," said MetroFi CEO, Chuck Haas.

He added in the proposal that MetroFi has developed an end-to-end solution for designing, building and operating citywide Wi-Fi networks. It is a three year old company, managed by communications industry veterans from Covad Communications, and well-funded with top-tier Silicon Valley venture backing from August Capital and Sevin Rosen Funds.

"MetroFi stands ready to deploy a 1-2 square mile pilot network which will enable the city to validate our capabilities," Haas said.

However, MetroFi has already deployed networks in four Bay Area cities, including Cupertino and Santa Clara. In both these later two cities, subscribers have community-wide Wi-Fi access for $19.95 a month, or much less for low-income areas.

"We have developed a 'recipe' that can be rapidly scaled across the city and county of San Francisco," MetroFi said in their proposal. "The company has spent three years and millions of dollars building Operations Support Systems (OSS), qualifying vendor equipment, and developing the RF planning, installation and operational methods and procedures which will enable us to replicate our Silicon Valley network for the community wireless broadband network required in the RFI/C."

Other Options
Among the documents so far released by city officials (as of Oct. 18th) are responses from a total of 24 companies with a commercial interest in participating in the project.

Some of the proposals from commercial ventures were expunged of details that the companies claimed were confidential or proprietary information. Nevertheless the material released shows a range of other options open to the city in its pursuit of a citywide Wi-Fi network, especially if it chose to consider a low-cost subscription-based model rather than a free advertising-driven model.

The city also released the comments received by organizations and individual citizens who had no commercial interest in the project and only wished to provide feedback on the RFI/C or the Wi-Fi initiative in general.

Responses released by city officials can be found here.

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