Municipality hires Plano firm to build and operate citywide system
09:42 PM CST on Tuesday, March 22, 2005
By TERRY MAXON / The Dallas Morning News
In what may be a first for a Texas municipality, the entire town of Addison will soon become a Wi-Fi "hotspot," giving residents and workers there wireless access to high-speed Internet service.
In an unusual move, Addison sought out companies to provide wireless service, then picked Plano-based RedMoon Inc. to build and operate the system. Addison will receive a portion of subscriber revenues and a number of free subscriptions for municipal use.
The prospect of city-owned wireless systems has drawn significant opposition from established carriers, particularly the local-phone giants, in the past year.
They say tax-supported telecommunications networks have an unfair advantage because they don't have to make money and can give away services at cost or for free.
But Addison differs from the municipal systems proposed elsewhere because Addison will not own or operate the service, although it awarded a franchise to RedMoon's winning proposal.
The project also competes with the localized Wi-Fi hotspots operated by such companies as T-Mobile USA at Starbucks or by Wayport Inc. at McDonald's restaurants and Barnes & Noble bookstores. But as opposed to those short-range wireless services, RedMoon will provide service citywide.
'Cutting edge'
Officials for RedMoon and Addison said the project will make Addison the first completely digital community in Texas.
"We've always been known for being on the cutting edge," said Lea Dunn, Addison's deputy city manager, "and we're always talking about ways to stay competitive and provide services to our residents and our businesses."
Working out details
RedMoon president Bryan Thompson said the company is still considering the rates it will charge subscribers, which will vary based on speed of downloads and other factors. But he suggested a residential customer would be able to obtain wireless Internet service with speeds of 1 megabit per second for just under $30 a month.
That's slower than the 1.5 to 3 megabits promised by DSL broadband or up to 4 megabits offered by Comcast Corp.'s cable broadband service. Mr. Thompson said the 1-megabit speed was fast enough for most home surfers.
"The average user can't tell the difference. At 4 megabits, unless you're doing a high-end video application or have high-end capacity needs, most people aren't going to tell the difference," he said.
While RedMoon will "adjust as necessary," he said, "we don't see the need to overkill the network at this point if most folks are wanting e-mail connectivity, sending files and pictures and so forth back and forth. We see enough capacity on a 1-megabit network today."
The company is still working out the final architecture for its system. One idea is to build a tower along Midway Road and to use the town's communications tower. But RedMoon has also discussed putting its equipment atop a high-rise building at Belt Line Road and Dallas North Tollway, said Hamid Khaleghipour, Addison's director of information technology.
Mr. Khaleghipour said the Wi-Fi mesh system will provide a cheap alternative to companies who don't want to pay $400 to $600 a month for a higher-speed T-1 line.
Ideal location
Mr. Khaleghipour and Ms. Dunn said Addison offers an ideal place to offer a citywide system - the town is small, with only 4.35 square miles, but has a daytime population of about 100,000 with residents, workers and visitors to its 170 restaurants and 22 hotels.
Ms. Dunn said the project received no protests from other telecom companies.
"The cable system is already in place, and they certainly can provide that service. We did not receive protests from any of those providers," she said. "And everyone was free to submit a proposal for consideration."
Texas already bars municipalities from offering local-phone and other licensed services. A bill introduced in the Legislature this spring considered extending that ban to all telecom services, but a House committee didn't adopt the measure.
The full House will take up a telecom bill today, and some legislators are expected to offer an amendment to extend the municipal ban.
In December, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell signed a law that would require cities thinking about building a telecom network to first ask the dominant local-phone company to sign off on the deal or give it 14 months to offer a similar service.
Verizon Communications Inc., that state's biggest phone company, lobbied heavily for the measure after the city of Philadelphia announced plans to bathe the city in free Wi-Fi.
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