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Residents, businesses and visitors in Houston could soon be able to surf around cyberspace while roaming around the city. Houston, Texas Mayor Bill White announced this week that it has chosen Internet service provider (ISP) EarthLink to build a citywide wireless broadband network for the southern city. The contract is still pending further negotiation.
For Houston, EarthLink agreed to offer a wholesale rate of about $10 per month for up to 40,000 low-income users. Houston's 600-square-mile service area will make this WiFi deployment the largest in North America for the ISP.
"This is a very important initiative for Houston as it will bring the consumer cost of broadband down significantly and already has," declared Mayor White in a statement. "It will provide a scarce resource to help our low-income households have access, benefiting students at home, helping telecommuters for whom childcare or transportation creates limitations, and benefiting telemedicine in the future. Houston's workforce will be more productive."
EarthLink has been making strides with new developments in the wireless communications market. Indeed, the ISP also made an agreement with VoIP service provider Vonage recently to offer customers WiFi (News - Alert) Internet access in select cities throughout the United States.
Vonage (News - Alert) will buy Internet access on a wholesale basis from EarthLink in all cities where the company will build, own and operate municipal wireless networks. Vonage agreed to resell this WiFi Internet service to its consumers under the Vonage brand.
In addition to Houston, EarthLink has ongoing municipal WiFi contracts in Atlanta, Philadelphia; Anaheim and Milpitas, California and New Orleans.
Want to learn more about WiFi? Then be sure to check out TMCnet’s Whitepaper Library, which provides a selection of in-depth information on relevant topics affecting the IP Communications industry. The library offers white papers, case studies and other documents which are free to registered users.
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Johanne Torres is contributing editor for TMCnet and Internet Telephony magazine. To see more articles by Johanne Torres, please visit her columnist page.
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