Windy, not wireless

A plan to cover Long Island with wireless access has been met with interest - and a heavy dose of skepticism from those who think it will cost a fortune to pull off a network that covers the whole region.

For the skeptics, then, it should come as no surprise that an aggressive plan elsewhere fell by the wayside today. Chicago, the country’s third-largest city, said today it was scrapping its plan to build a wireless network.

Here is Chicago’s statement:

“We realized — after much consideration — that we needed to reevaluate our approach to provide universal and affordable access to high speed Internet as part of the city’s broader digital inclusion efforts,” Chicago’s chief information officer, Hardik Bhatt, said in a statement.

And this comes from the Associated Press:

Instead, the city said its negotiations with private-sector partners, including EarthLink Inc., have stalled because any citywide Wi-Fi would require massive public financing. The city had hoped to provide only infrastructure for the network.

Tuesday’s announcement makes Chicago the latest in a string of municipalities to encounter troubles with their municipal broadband initiatives because of ballooning budgets and dwindling usage that’s led to scant revenue generated by the projects. About 175 U.S. cities or regions have citywide or partial systems.

To be fair, cities such as San Fransisco, working with Google, are still moving ahead with wireless networks, though as you can see in our comments thread, even S.F. is struggling.

Florida’s e-Path Communications is supposed to build Long Island’s system.

By the way, Craig Plunkett of CEDX Corp., responsible for Fire Island Wireless, gives us an update in our comments section. Here is his Web site, full of information on various Wi-Fi plans.