County Considering Wi-Fi In Face of Mounting Problem$ With Trash Program

The St. Louis Business Journal reports St. Louis and St. Charles county officials say they are determined to figure out something their counterparts in San Francisco, Houston, Chicago, Sacramento and Cincinnati could not: how to provide a regionwide wireless Internet system that works. This follows on the heels of how St. Louis County is trying to provide a regionwide trash collection system that is meeting much consumer resistence.

While a valued service, numerous cities have found that wi-fi (wireless Internet) is expensive to provide. St. Louis and St. Charles County officials need to take note of the cities mentioned in this article along with the City of St. Louis.

Despite failures in several major cities across the country, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann and members of their respective county councils are pushing forward with a plan to explore ways to put the proper infrastructure in place. Their latest move comes just one month after AT&T dropped its plans to outfit St. Louis with citywide Wi-Fi due to high costs and power supply issues.

Members of both county councils are assembling a joint ad hoc steering committee that will decide whether the two counties should ultimately coordinate their efforts. If so, the committee will select board appointees to a nonprofit organization called the St. Louis Regional Broadband Coalition. The coalition will be charged with oversight of a strategic plan for a regional Internet infrastructure that would include both wired broadband and wireless technologies.

Board members are expected to include representatives of local businesses, educational and cultural institutions, health-care systems and government agencies.