GRAND RAPIDS ? The Grand Rapids City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to award a citywide wireless contract to Clearwire LLC, which operates high-speed wireless networks in about 30 U.S. cities.
Called WiMAX, the new technology boasts better penetration in buildings and neighborhoods than Wi-Fi, said city officials on Friday, who chose Clearwire from nine proposals submitted earlier this year. City commissioners are expected to act on the three-year contract Tuesday.
The downside is WiMAX still is under development and will require hardware upgrades for computers already equipped for Wi-Fi.
Clearwire will place its antenna on city water towers and other locations in exchange for high speed wireless access for police and firefighters. For Internet users in Grand Rapids and its suburbs, Clearwire is expected to offer an alternative to the high-speed cable modems and DSL systems on the market.
Clearwire’s WiMAX antennas should cover all 45 square miles of the city with 10 to 15 towers, Buhrer said.
The city contract calls for 5 percent of the city’s households to get low-income accounts for $9.95 a month, which will be administered by a nonprofit company to make sure poorer households aren?t left out ? the so called digital divide.
Clearwire also plans to set up several Wi-Fi “hot spots” throughout the city. The “hot spots” can be used by visitors and will offer free access to a “walled garden” that contains a limited number of Web sites, published reports said.
The local WiMAX system will use high-speed wireless modems that can be installed in computers or included in the PCMCIA cards that can be installed in most laptops today, Sally Wesorick, the city’s project manager, told The Grand Rapids Press.
