Philly Council Decision on WiFi Delayed

The committee hearing featured Don Berryman of Earthlink, the private firm that will build the wireless network for the city, said the signal will be broad but not particularly high:

"It will cover from the streetlight down, so it will cover about three stories, initially."


Councilman Brian O’Neill (at right in photo) delayed a vote because he and his colleagues only received detailed contracts in the past few days -- barely time to read through them:

"One thing I know – I had two days and couldn’t get it digested. Anybody who only had it one day, it was probably impossible."

Derek Pew, acting chairman of Wireless Philadelphia, was asked during the hearing why it took so long to get the documents to Council:

"I actually thought that these had been distributed earlier. So what you’re telling me now, I wasn’t aware of that."

Chief information officer, Dianah Neff (left in photo), told councilmembers the sooner they sign off on Wireless Philadelphia, the sooner the benefits come to residents:

"The revenue stream is generated from the building and running of the networks, so we are unable to move forward with our program without this approval."

Golden Telecom plans Moscow WiFi network

Golden Telecom plans to build a WiFi Internet network in Moscow later this year.

The wireless and Internet provider said Thursday it would deploy up to 5,000 access nodes in the city, and possibly more if necessary, the Prime-Tass news agency reported.

A test run of the system was expected sometime next month with "competitively priced" broadband service commencing soon after.

The announcement was made at the same time the company reported lower-than-expected earnings for the fourth quarter.

T-Mobile Offers Free Wifi

T-Mobile has announced a new service for it's cell service subscribers, for a limited time, it will offer free weekend WiFi at all 6500 plus hotspots. T-Mobile hotspots are located in most Starbucks, Border Books, and FedEx Kinko's copy shops.