Roxbury, Dorchester Finally Get Pilot Wi-Fi Network
Wade Roush4/1/08Leave a CommentFollow @wroush
After months of postponements, Openairboston.net, a non-profit group created last year to oversee the rollout of citywide Wi-Fi broadband Internet service, held a “wire-cutting” ceremony for its first pilot network yesterday in the Grove Hall and Dudley Square areas of Boston’s Roxbury and Dorchester neighborhoods.
Openairboston.net’s network, whose scheduled November 2007 launch was delayed by fundraising shortfalls and technical difficulties, covers a one-square-mile area with approximately 8,000 households and a median household income level of about $26,000, well below the city’s average of $42,500.
After a pilot period, residents will have to pay $10 to $15 per month to access the network, which is powered by Newton, MA-based ISP Galaxy Internet Services using equipment donated by Kanata, Ontario-based BelAir Networks, the largest builder of municipal Wi-Fi mesh networks.
Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent and editor of Xconomy San Francisco. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/wroush.
