Travel Technology - Chicago going wireless by 2007

I hope this is the right forum.

Chicago announced plans to blanket entire city (about 228 square miles) with wi-fi service by 2007. It follows plans by Philly which is ahead of the game as it plans to start up at the end of this year or beggining of next, but the Chicago project dwarfs the Philly one (135 square miles).

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=3916013

if at least the downtown area has free wifi, that would be pretty cool - I could actually make some productive use of my pda's wifi :D

question is, will the cost just end up as another tax...not that I myself have a problem with it if it's a few dollars/month for wifi access, but not everyone may like it. I also wonder how this would affect subscriptions to cellular companies' offerings and blackberry

I heard a news report that it will be pay-per-use or subscription... but sounds like it's in early stages and no one knows for sure?

You have to wonder if WiFi as a broad area service is last years news. 3G networks like the Verison and Sprint EVDO service is very widely available today, delivers a very respectable and predictable 500-700kb service with peaks above 1mb (theoretical 2.4mb today) and the cost has to continue dropping as the user base increases and competition prevails. In other regions UMTS will do the same. We are already seeing devices (smartphones, laptops, pda's) with EVDO radios built in. I can imagine by the time a regional wifi service was built out that EVDO or its next iteration will be available, all you can eat $19.99 a month just like the 2G and 2.5G networks are today.

I heard a news report that it will be pay-per-use or subscription... but sounds like it's in early stages and no one knows for sure?

That was the form of some of the earliest attempts at this. Rio Rancho, New Mexico got city-wide wireless in late 2004 available for a subscription fee. To put this in perspective with other major cities' projects, it covers 103 square miles (2/3 of which is empty desert). I believe this was another attempt to fill some of that space. :p