Interesting Wi-Fi read .........GlobeTel, why not help these poor St. Cloud folks out? :) Pioneering Wi-Fi City Sees Startup WoesBy TRAVIS REED, Associated Press WriterMonday, April 24, 2006 (04-24) 04:41 PDT ST. CLOUD, Fla. (AP) -- More than a month after St. Cloud launched what analysts say is the country's first free citywide Wi-Fi network, folks in this 28,000-person Orlando suburb are still paying to use their own Internet service providers as dead spots and weak signals keep some residents offline and force engineers to retool the free system.Joe Lusardi's friends back in New York couldn't believe it when he told them he'd have free Internet access through this city's new Wi-Fi network. "Everybody's happy they were going to have it, but I don't know if they're happy right now," said Lusardi, a 66-year-old retired New York City transit worker.The same troubles with the small town's big Internet project could be lessons for municipalities from Philadelphia to San Francisco considering similar networks.St. Cloud officials are spending more than $2 million on a network they see as a pioneering model for freeing local families, schools and businesses from monthly Internet bills. It also promises to help the city reduce cell-phone bills and let paramedics in an ambulance talk by voice and video to hospital doctors.Instead, what they have so far is a work in progress."All technology has its hiccups, and sometimes more than hiccups," St. Cloud Mayor Donna Hart said. "I think that it's going to be a major challenge, and it'll probably be a major challenge for some time until the technology is such that it works properly."Wi-Fi is the same technology behind wireless Internet access in coffee shops, airports and college campuses around the country.Several cities have Wi-Fi hotspots, but St. Cloud's 15-square-mile network is the first to offer free access citywide, said Seattle-based technology writer Glenn Fleishman, who runs a Web site called Wi-Fi Networking News.Other cities like Tempe, Ariz., have networks over a larger area (187 square miles), but access isn't free. Planned projects in places like Chicago and Philadelphia would also dwarf St. Cloud's network, but also require a fee for access.Google Inc. and EarthLink Inc. are teaming up to build a $15 million Wi-Fi network across San Francisco, and their proposal is entering final negotiations. EarthLink's faster offering would cost $20 per month, while Google would provide a slower, free service financed by advertising.St. Cloud launched the network on a trial basis in May 2004 in a new division of town to help give businesses an incentive to relocate. After further exploring the benefits, officials decided to expand it citywide.Project supporters say increased efficiency in city government will cover the network's $2.6 million buildout and estimated $400,000 annual operating expense.For example, phones that use the Wi-Fi network will allow it to cut cell-phone bills for police and city workers. The city can avoid adding 10 more building inspectors because the network will existing employees to enter and access data onsite instead of driving back to the office.The network also could keep the estimated $450 that St. Cloud households now spend each year on high-speed access in the local economy.As of last week, nearly 3,500 users had registered for the network, logging 176,189 total hours of use. St. Cloud contracted with Hewlett-Packard Co. to build the project and provide customer support."HP is working with the city and its partners to optimize the solution and install additional access points to help improve signal strength in isolated areas of the city," the company said in a statement.So far, there have been plenty of calls from frustrated residents. Some can see receivers from their homes and still can't sign on ? even on the porch. Others have tried to connect countless times.Still, HP said that there
