The city's municipal Wi-FI network is a step closer to being built: Yesterday, City Council unanimously approved a contract with EarthLink to build the 600-square-mile network, which will be the largest in North America when it's completed in 2009. And, as expected, downtown will likely be the first area to have coverage, with other areas following in 100-square-mile sections. "We're not going to wait for all the zones to be completed before we turn [the network] on," Janis Jefferson, the city's chief technology officer for infrastructure, told the Chronicle.

Access to the network will be available to all Houstonians for about $22 a month, with 40,000 $10 accounts reserved for low-income residents (though the city hasn't yet figured out who will qualify for those). The city itself will pay $2.5 million over five years for access to the system — a lot of money, but an expenditure the city says could lead to better communication among city employees. And in the long term, officials say that $2.5 million will be cheaper than trying to outfit city employees with wireless Internet cards for their computers. Eventually, the city hopes to control traffic lights and read water meters through the network.

According to the contract with EarthLink, the municipal Wi-Fi system will offer download speeds of up to one megabit per second, which is faster than dial-up access and a bit faster than basic DSL, but significantly slower than cable modem service. The speed isn't all that impressive, but the range is: Theoretically, you'll be able to access the Internet from anywhere in the city once the network is in place. Exactly how well that works, however, remains to be seen.