Boston to use nonprofit group to run its Wi-Fi network
Separate entity would give city more control over network, but it could take longer to build
Boston officials announced today that they will search for a nonprofit corporation to raise up to $20 million to build and operate wireless Internet services citywide over the next two years.

The unnamed, independent organization will give the city more control over the Wi-Fi network than would an outside Internet service provider, and the hope is to keep Internet service costs lower as well, said William "Bo" Holland, the city's acting CIO, who has met regularly with members of the mayor's Wireless Task Force in recent months.

Holland spoke in an interview just prior to an announcement today by Mayor Thomas Menino and task force members. After two years in the acting post, Holland today was named head of intergovernmental relations for the city, and Menino announced William Oates as the new city CIO.

"We believe the nonprofit route may be the best way to bring low-cost service to every neighborhood while providing a platform for innovation unlike any in the nation," Menino said in a statement. "By keeping the network open, we believe we can create a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity, which will spur economic growth and job creation."

According to the recommendations (PDF format) of the Wireless Task Force, the new organization will oversee construction and technology integration and then own and operate the network.

The concept of using a nonprofit entity to run the service is unique as far as Boston officials can determine and was designed to avoid problems encountered in other big cities weighing municipal Wi-Fi, Holland said.

Holland said he and the task force spent considerable time talking to Philadelphia and San Francisco officials about their approaches to issuing requests for proposals. But the contractors, such as EarthLink Inc., which eventually won the business, told the cities, " 'We don't like the specifications, and we will do it this way,' so the city was stuck with what the vendor wanted to do," he said. "We tried to benefit from their experiences."

None of the major Internet service providers have shown an inclination to provide low-cost services to Boston, Holland said. The plan is that once the nonprofit begins to oversee the building of the network, small and large Internet service providers will use the network to offer Internet access via their sites. "Even a mom-and-pop ISP will be eligible to buy broadband access and remarket and resell it," Holland said, so that even a neighborhood might be represented by a smaller Internet service provider.