Bostonians beyond Commonwealth Avenue tired of fumbling with phone jacks and cords or stealing the neighboring coffee shop’s wireless connection will have to keep plugging along and plugging in for a while because citywide public WiFi is far from completion, officials say.
Though Mayor Thomas Menino established the Main Streets WiFi Initiative in 1995 in hopes of setting up wireless Internet service in 19 neighborhoods, it has been installed in only two neighborhoods — Roslindale Village and Washington Gateway.
The Daily Free Press reported last October that the project had just begun its pilot program, and while the project has been slow to gain steam, Boston Redevelopment Authority spokeswoman Lucy Warsh said it is being installed in hopes of supporting the entire city’s infrastructure.
“We want to bridge the digital divide by giving Internet access to disadvantaged neighborhoods, create a platform for innovation to encourage entrepreneurship and improve city services,” Warsh said. “This project is going to increase Boston’s reputation as a high-tech hub.”
Smaller WiFi projects, like one under construction in Roxbury, provide the opportunity to identify and correct minor flaws in the system before they are converted to a larger scale, she said.
“What we started was a pilot,” Warsh said. “We want to get it working well. It’s what we will focus on until we start [The Main Streets WiFi Initiative]. It’s the smaller initiatives that have made wireless projects possible.”
The project has taken longer than planned because it is based entirely on donated time, resources and effort, said Boston Main Streets program director Emily Haber.
“We had hoped to have more districts up and running,” she said, “but that hasn’t happened yet because we’re doing this in a way that won’t cost the taxpayers any money.”
Main Streets business manager Brian Goodman said inetUSA and ASCIO Wireless are the two major independent companies developing the WiFi Initiative.
On the Boston University campus, it’s not hard to get connected – much of campus, including Mugar Library, most academic buildings, study lounges in many dorms and even the BU Beach offers wireless connections. According to Jim Stone, director of consulting services at the Information Technology Office, 11,375 different users accessed BU’s wireless in September.
But the school has no plans to implement WiFi throughout the entire campus, he said, because the process would be inefficient and expensive.
“This campus is huge,” he said. “When you talk about campus-wide Internet access you are talking about an enormous footprint. . . It wouldn’t make sense.”