Tempe, Ariz., CIO faces Wi-Fi reality check

Computerworld - Dave Heck, CIO for the city of Tempe, Ariz., remembers when municipal Wi-Fi advocates talked four years ago about wireless networks as shining beacons that would bring the Internet to the masses.

Today, in Tempe, that optimism is nearly gone. Tempe's citywide Wi-Fi system went live in 2006, offering some 900 access points installed on city-owned poles for the city's 160,000 residents and businesses; now, it's basically dead.

On Dec. 28, the network's operator, the Kite Networks division of Gobility Inc. in Richardson, Texas, essentially cut off service and pulled the plug on its customer service phone line and Web site, Heck said. Subscribers responded with angry letters to newspapers and have hounded city officials to do something to restore service.

But the city's leverage is limited, Heck said. "Obviously, the city never thought this would happen or would have never gotten into it," he said in an interview on Friday. "People are pointing fingers, with some citizens thinking [the city] had more involvement than we did. Nobody could have foreseen this."

Kite Networks, under previous owner MobilePro Corp., did a poor job of marketing the service, and failed to get more than 800 subscribers at its peak, Heck said. "Their rates have been half the cost of wired Internet services, and they could have gotten subscribers if they marketed it right, but they didn't market it well," he said.

Kite offered at a special rate of $12.95 per month for three months, with the price then going to $19.95 a month.

Gobility CEO Gary Brown declined for legal reasons to discuss what has happened in Tempe, or the firm's plans for the future. Gobility's Web site said the company has 17,000 customers in 21 markets.

Heck said Gobility was told to correct the network problems by Feb. 10, but failed to do so. That means if Gobility offers no fix by March 28, the city will seize the network's assets -- primarily the 900 access points on city-owned utility poles. City officials argue that Gobility officially abandoned the network on Dec. 28.

Tempe does not want to run the network, Heck said, but the move could be used to force Gobility into action. The network firm has a contract with Tempe that allows the city to begin charging rent 90 days following a failure to provide in-kind WiFi services to the city. At $450 a month per pole, that amount totals almost $2 million a year. "That's not something they will want to leave hanging for very long," Heck said.

Last year, in lieu of rents on the pole access, the city was to get free in-kind Wi-Fi service for use by police, traffic engineers and water inspectors. Some of those services were being rolled out, but their fate is now uncertain, Heck said.