Moving ahead with city Wi-Fi plan

A couple more details today on Houston's municipal Wi-Fi plan: According to the AP, pending City Council approval, Atlanta-based EarthLink Municipal Networks would spend $50 million to set up the 600-square-mile network, which will require 10,000 transmitters to be placed on light and utility poles (and, perhaps, rooftops) across the city. In short, it's going to be big, and Mayor Bill White didn't miss out on a chance to do a little bragging yesterday: Referring to other cities' wireless networks, he said, "You could put all their square miles, add them up and double, and you'll come up with about the square miles of the city of Houston that will be covered by the project." We feel so Houston proud. (The Chronicle's NewsWatch: City Hall has a podcast of yesterday's announcement and press conference on the proposal.)

As far as what we can expect to pay for access to the city network, that's still up in the air. We know the wholesale price would be $12 a month, the rate at which EarthLink would sell access to other ISPs including PeoplePC, Vonage and DirecTV. Those companies, in turn, would sell access to consumers with a markup — the final cost would probably be anywhere from $14 to $21.95 a month, EarthLink Municipal Networks President Donald Berryman told the AP. That leaves us wondering whether people will be willing to pay $20 for access to the network given the potential problems with service. But hey, we'll see — we hope to be pleasantly surprised.

The next step for the Wi-Fi contract is City Council approval, and as the Chronicle notes, no one's wasting time: The contract is already on the agenda of the council's Transportation, Infrastructure and Aviation Committee for Thursday. Committee Chairman Michael Berry said he expects the contract to be approved because White was personally involved in negotiating it. "The mayor played hardball with them, and so I think what we end up with will be very pro-consumer," Berry said.