L.A. mayor wants muni WiFi by 2009
By Paul Miller 
posted Feb 15th 2007 1:11AM
posted Feb 15th 2007 1:11AM
Antonio Villaraigosa, the mayor of Los Angeles, wants municipal WiFi in his fair city, and he seems to have the wherewithal to make it happen. Such a project, covering 498 square miles of the sprawling city, would be a massive undertaking, costing somewhere around $54-$62 million. The city will probably partner with a private provider such as Google or Earthlink to pay for and manage the installation, and should be seeking bids this fall. Villaraigosa is already forming a working group, and plans on hiring an expert to iron out the details. Aware of the certain, ahem, problems encountered in San Francisco and other places, Villaraigosa says the initiative is "not going to be a study to put on the shelf." L.A. also owns its own street light and power poles and electric utility, overcoming an obstacle with Southern California Edison, which has denied WiFi installations a place on its own poles in other California cities. Of course, there are plenty of ways that a project this massive could go wrong, but if L.A. can pull this off it'll have some quite notable bragging rights, that's for sure.[Thanks, Gary N]
first
^Congratulations, Matthew. You have accomplished absolutely nothing
This undertaking will make someone very rich.
Just a side note of things to think about, but how possible is it that maybe google or some big company with huge capital controls some of these political figures
This is great news. Unfortunately, by the time it's all set up, I'll be living in a different city where real people actually exist.
Villaraigosa is a pretty good guy, though.
Will it be free?
It will be supported by ads, and the sale of premium services. At least that is what they are reporting here in LA.
I'm kind of on the fence on this, but if Villarigosa wants this, then I am suspicious. He seems to be a big government, socialist kind of guy.
I think Houston will be first before L.A.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/4552151.html
I'm not from LA so I have no comment about the mayor's integrity. But it's about time. Stop listening to little whiny pu**ies that claim they can *feel* wi-fi and set up muni Wi-Fi in every major metopolis in North America and Europe (in fact if someone is willing to fund it, then everywher in the world). Free public internet is the way to go. Sure some ppl will have security problems but thats why we need to introduce public education on web safety (sorta like we do for safe sex, or the dangers of smoking). Free Information Exchange is the future, and the sooner we embrace it the sooner we can achieve great deeds.
So now you will be blanketed in Wi-Fi, as well as smog
Tony Villar, his name prior to running for mayor of a predominately hispanic city, is a bombastic POS.
http://www.bruinalumni.com/antonio/antonioindex.html
Villaraigosa is a "POS"! A lying one at that. Gang violence should be his number one priority, it isn't. AZTLAN and Reconquista is, he doesnt care that mexican gang members are killing non mexicans across the city.
Aztlan: http://www.illegalaliens.us/aztlan.htm
reconquista: http://www.barnesreview.org/The__Reconquista_-Mexico_s_Dre/the__reconquista_-mexico_s_dre.html
As much as I love the idea of free WiFi across my city I'd much rather have them fix LAX and re-pave our roadways. Antonio put a stop to the LAX remodeling plan when he came into power. Parts of LAX are in such disrepair right now that they should be shut down altogether. I've been to better airports in third world countries and I find it incredibly frustrating that that dump is the first impression people get of LA.
That not new The City of Corpus Christi (in Texas) has had city wide WiFi for awhile now. Right now it is free to the residence.
Racist pile of crap...
So if Mexicans only killed Mexicans, it would be fine?
Keep your xenophobia off of my favorite tech blog...
Haha, plenty of us have our pet projects we'd like to see him work on. Mine would have to be mass transit. Give us decent mass transit and we'll make a Los Angeles more prosperous than you could possibly imagine...
But in the meantime, it sure would be cool to have wifi on those buses stuck in traffic :) I picked up a Sidekick JUST so I could surf/blog during my bus-bound commute. Yes, I am car-free here in LA. Just call me freak boy...
Good for you Pete, proving it can be done. But you do have to live in the right places. I use Metro 3 to 4 times per week myself.
Does anyone know why SCE is refusing cities to place base stations on power poles? I would assume it's because they want to use the poles for their own possible wi-fi/wi-max/wi-whatever rollout at some time in the future.
How is it racist?? Mexicans aren't a race of people, just like Americans aren't. Mexican is a nationality, this has nothing to do about race. The La Raza movement is racist ideology, they advocate the violent retaking of the south west, and that includes killing non mexicans. Reconquista has already started in LA, Mexican gang members are killing "non mexicans" wether they're tied to a gang or not. So far none of the victims have been. The gang members who were arrested for several murders admitted to following an order from the mexican mafia who gave them the green light. The mexican mafia is an extension of La Raza!
Uhh... It's only been all over the news in LA several times! LAPD provides crime stats which is public info, 2 out of 3 victims of gang violence are not gang members. The murderous gang members just happen to be Mexican, most of their victims are not! Call the DOJ in cali and speek with an office who over sees gang injunctions they will happily give you info. ;)
Wow, this entire thread comments are getting a bit rascist.
Antonio is not a perfect Mayor, but he does what he does for the people for the most part. Should he be more focused on gang violence? Maybe, but really its entirely out of his control. The people voted DOWN a measure to increase gang officers and traffic officers during the last election. What more can the city do without the people wanting to raise their taxes a bit?
Some people have no common sense.
@ CeBe
That city is not a major city. There are a lot of small towns with full WiFi, covering a few squaremiles isnt very hard. Unfortunately covering a city 400-600 square miles has never been done before, hence it being the first. An entire metropolitan area covered in WiFi would be amazing, to say the least.