Why not Wi-Fi?

Byline: The Register-Guard

Try this on for size: "Eugene - the city that clicks." Don't like it? How about "Eugene - the city that surfs"? Or "Eugene - a really hot spot"?

OK, the slogan needs work, but the idea is intriguing. Picture a wireless Internet system that covers all of downtown Eugene and that allows anyone with a laptop computer to snag e-mail or pay bills, check movie times or make dinner reservations - or even chat with the "fam" back home in Duluth.

Currently, a smattering of coffee houses and bookstores in downtown Eugene lure business by offering "Wi-Fi" access. The city should consider joining the growing ranks of communities, large and small, across the nation that offer free or low-cost public access to wireless Internet networks in their downtowns.

Philadelphia, Chicago, Spokane, Milwaukee, New York, San Francisco, Long Beach and Palo Alto are among the many cities that have public networks or are planning to install them. Some of the networks are massive systems that span entire cities, while others cover only the downtown cores.

In Sacramento, the City Council last week voted to seek bids from Internet vendors for a high-speed wireless network that could eventually cover the entire metropolitan area. The plan limits the city's role to expediting the permitting process and allowing Wi-Fi transmitters to be installed on city-owned utility poles and buildings.

After two years of planning, a Portland coalition of government officials, business leaders and high-tech enthusiasts recently agreed to build a system that will cost between $10 million and $25 million and provide an alternative to existing Internet service providers. The city will serve as the "anchor tenant," using the wireless service when it's less expensive than other networks.

So why not Eugene? With relatively little money and some oomph from the public sector, the private sector or both, a wireless network that covers the downtown, including the emerging federal courthouse district, could be up and running in as little as a year or two.

So far, there's been only scattered discussion of the idea by the Eugene Water & Electric Board, at City Hall and among downtown businesses. It deserves more serious consideration, especially in light of technological advances that make wireless systems far easier to build and more affordable than in the past.

Among its many potential benefits, a wireless system could help recruit new businesses to a downtown where there's no need to rewire older buildings, and where an employee could flop down with a laptop on any park bench or in any cafe and Google away to his or her heart's content. Such a system might also help draw groups looking for convention locations.

For local officials, a public wireless system has the attractive potential of making free or low-cost Internet access available to a broader spectrum of city residents. It might also be possible to connect to the University of Oregon's wireless system, which already covers portions of the campus, or the Lane Events Center, where a wireless system is being installed.

There are nearly as many different ways to establish and operate a wireless system as there are networks. It could be done by a coalition of downtown businesses, by private carriers, by the city of Eugene - or by EWEB, which already offers high-speed Internet capacity through a fiber-optic line that runs through the downtown.

Let the discussion begin. As for the slogan, that can come later.