A contract negotiations team made up of City staff, elected officials, and community and tech experts recommended the City choose US Internet as the wireless vendor after a selection process that began with more than 80 companies who expressed interest in working with the City.
The citywide wireless initiative, known as "Wireless Minneapolis," will result in one of the largest municipal Wi-Fi rollouts in the United States. Residents and businesses will have the opportunity to sign up for wireless accounts that will allow them to use their wireless-ready computers anywhere in the city with consumers receiving inexpensive high-speed Internet access from 1 to 3 million-bits-per-second (Mbps) download and upload speeds for $19.99 a month, guaranteed for 10 years.
Construction of the network, which will cover all 60 square miles of the city, will begin this fall and is expected to take roughly a year.
"Learning from the experiences and challenges faced by other cities, Minneapolis has chosen both a business model and a technology solution that ensures immediate, on-going, and sustainable benefits to our citizens, visitors, municipal workers, and public safety personnel," stated R.T. Rybak, mayor of Minneapolis. "We managed to work out a deal that will truly allow us to revolutionize the way we do business. A citywide wireless network will be an invaluable public safety tool, and it will allow us to provide many other services more efficiently than ever, stretching the taxpayers' dollars."
Minneapolis CIO, Karl Kaiser explained: "US Internet offered the best proposal, and we were very pleased with the performance of their pilot network and the BelAir Networks technology."
"We are thrilled to be selected by the City of Minneapolis, its esteemed City Council, and the honorable Mayor to change the landscape of our beloved metropolis by bringing affordable and mobile broadband access to all," said Joe Caldwell, US Internet co-founder and CEO of USI Wireless, which already provides services to Twin Cities corporations. "I'm confident that Wireless Minneapolis will be hailed as the finest business model of public and private organizations coming together and the best example of deploying wireless broadband in the United States."
Added Kurt Lange, US Internet co-founder and COO of USI Wireless, "Taking a true partnership approach, this initiative will provide a truly unique and competitive alternative to high-speed Internet offerings to those who live, work, and visit the city. In addition, Wireless Minneapolis will deliver other valuable broadband services to both the public and private sector, such as Internet phone, wireless video for download movies, and home security monitoring. Going forward, we are eager to execute our plans here in Minneapolis with the help of BelAir and are extremely excited about the possibility of bringing our Wi-Fi success to other cities surrounding Minneapolis proper as well as other cities nationwide."
