<p>EarthLink Inc. has finalized a 10-year contract to provide citywide high-speed wireless Internet service, and full deployment is expected by spring 2007, a city official said Monday.</p><p>Dianah Neff, Philadelphia's chief information officer and head of Wireless Philadelphia, said the contract will go before City Council for approval in February.</p><p>Atlanta-based EarthLink will own the network and charge a wholesale rate of $9 a month to Internet service providers that would resell the service to the public, she said.</p><p>Donald Berryman, president of EarthLink's municipal networks division, said talks are ongoing with at least 10 ISPs interested in reselling the service. He said the network will be able serve up to 250,000 subscribers, but could be expanded to accommodate more.</p><p>Last year, Philadelphia became the first large city to announce a plan to provide a low-cost wireless Internet network. Wireless Philadelphia, a nonprofit, was charged with overseeing the project to bring wireless Internet access to the city's 1.5 million residents across 135 square miles.</p><p>Neff said the contract with EarthLink doesn't specify the monthly rate that would be charged to consumers, but she said the wholesale price is low enough to enable ISPs to offer low-cost services. City officials had been trying to keep the monthly price to $20 or less.</p><p>The speed would be at least 1 megabit per second, slower than the speeds typically offered by telephone and cable companies. EarthLink said the service initially will be targeted at first-time Internet users, dial-up customers, occasional Web surfers, business people and tourists.</p><p>Construction should start right after the contract is signed, possibly March or April. EarthLink will build the network initially over a 15-square-mile area in Northeast Philadelphia to prove the system will work, Neff said.</p><p>Under the terms of the agreement, which can be renewed for two five-year terms, EarthLink will carry the cost to build the Wi-Fi network. Berryman said it will cost the company a little over $13 million to build. He declined to disclose yearly operating costs.</p><p>EarthLink also will pay the city and Wireless Philadelphia a fee to mount wireless Internet equipment onto city infrastructure, such as streetlamps. These 4,000-plus wireless access points will transmit to each other, forming a wireless Internet mesh.</p><p>EarthLink will provide 1,000 Wi-Fi accounts for the city to use and negotiate a discounted rate for additional users, Berryman said.</p><p>The company also will give Wireless Philadelphia 5 percent of revenue, which will be allocated for buying 10,000 computers for low-income households. Neff said about $5 million is needed for that program, which will mainly be funded by grants.</p><p>Nationally, over 300 communities are interested in, setting up or have established municipal Wi-Fi, said Craig Settles, author of a book on Philadelphia's Wi-Fi plans.</p><p>___</p><p>On the Net:</p><p>HASH(0x1cdc3f8)</p><p>HASH(0x1cdc4a0)</p>
