Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner

Google's first foray into providing blanket wireless internet coverage has proved victorious, with its home town of Mountain View giving the local company a five-year monopoly on providing Wi-Fi access.

Google will rent 400 street posts in Mountain View, California, for $12,600 a year, on which it will erect 802.11 hubs at a density of around 20 to 30 per square mile. The city wide network is expected to go live in June.

"It's a pretty cool thing,'' Mayor Matt Neely told the San Jose Mercury news. Over a fifth of Google's five thousand employees are based in the municipality.

Meanwhile, San Francisco's muncipal Wi-Fi project "TechConnect" which has attracted over 20 bids including one from Google, is under coming under increasing scrutiny, however.

Some of the TechConnect bids remain entirely secret, and in others - for example, Google's bid - 90 per cent of the proposal is redacted.

Kimo Crossman, a Wi-Fi advocate who's been pressing the city for more details, points out that every municipality in the United States is engaging the public in the decision process except San Francisco.

It's a startling departure from the norm for large public infrastructure projects.

He described an August 31 meeting as "... so embarassingly disorganized - seems like they are just going through the motions for cover - that they probably already know about a backroom deal."

He noted that Mountain View's rubber stamping of Google's proposal included no details of a Service Level Agreements, no consideration of impact on other city businesses, large and small, and no details on how the city can cancel and under-performing bid.

Kimo's campaign to ensure San Francisco doesn't suffer the same fate is detailed on his weblog, Webnetic. ®

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