Philadelphia and Earthlink have developed the first contract between a major city and a private network owner for citywide wireless. This paper presents the highlights of the Wireless Philadelphia Broadband Network Agreement between Earthlink and Wireless Philadelphia (the city government-chartered non-profit), with my comments in italics. At the end is a summary of the overall lessons cities might learn from Philadelphia’s experience.
This is not a complete representation of the contract. Rather, I have emphasized those points that have not been included in news reports but re important to other cities considering privately owned citywide wireless networks.
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