By Forrest Adams

Chaska is hot, Chanhassen is not. Neither is Eden Prairie. That is, considering whether or not they offer municipal Internet service to create a giant hotspot in the city.

A hot spot is an area where a computer or other device that has Internet capability is able to log onto the Internet without physically connecting to it with a wire.

As local cities and cities across the country move into the business of providing low-priced municipal wireless Internet services to their citizens, officials and citizens are left grappling with the philosophical question of what role city governments should play.

Chanhassen

Chanhassen officials take the position that they don’t want to be in the Wi-Fi business, said assistant city manager Laurie Hokkanen, because it’s a service capably offered by private businesses.

In addition to a number of hot spots created by private companies within Chanhassen, there are two municipal hot spots, City Hall and the library. And there’s certainly no shortage of demand for the services.

Janet Kinney, manager of the Chanhassen Library, is an advocate of a robust wireless network, be it municipal or provided by private companies.

“It is used a lot,” she said of the library’s network. “When you walk around the library in the afternoons, I’d say that at least 20 people, maybe more, are on their lap tops using the wireless network. Most of the people are business people who are away from the office. They need a place to get away and get their work done.”

Hokkanen said the two municipal hot spots are the result of a partnership between the city and a private company. The company gave an amount of Internet bandwidth to the city in return for a reduced lease rate for the company’s antenna to be placed on one of Chanhassen’s water towers, she said, adding that in the future the city would be willing to partner with other Internet providers to create additional municipal hot spots.

“As companies approach us about partnering, we’ll continue to work with them,” she said.

Chaska

Since 2004, the city of Chaska has supported a city-run wireless broadband Net access service called Chaska.net.

It’s less expensive than the broadband services offered by private Internet service providers, and the reason for the city’s continued investment is simple: Improve the quality of life for citizens, according to city officials.

“Our goal has always been to keep affordable broadband capability in the community,” said Chad Palm, information systems manager for Chaska and Chaska.net. “We truly believe it is a valuable resource.”

Spread over approximately 14 square miles, 378 routers on low-profile mounting brackets attached to city light poles and electrical poles, as well to city facilities like City Hall, create a cloud of radio signals in Chaska that subscribers to Chaska.net can use to access the Web. The city also provides a device at no extra charge to allow for the signals to be redistributed wirelessly within the home.

Chaska.Net expands to the northern border of Chaska, effectively able to service each of the more than 7,000 homes in the city. Currently the service has approximately 2,200 subscribers, and Palm said so far he has gotten “very positive feedback.”

“There’s a high interest in the community,” he said. “We anticipate growth in the next few years.”

Maintenance to the system is performed by four full-time employees, and in case of any problems with the routers, Palm said there’s enough redundancy in the system to where they’re able to reroute Internet traffic in the interim before the damaged router is fixed.

Chaska.Net offers two different types of services — one for residential Internet at $16 per month and a business wireless offering for $24 per month.

Eden Prairie

David Lindahl, Eden Prairie’s economic development manager, said while his city doesn’t currently have municipal wireless service, it’s an idea that city officials have been considering.

In fact, several months ago a technology task force consisting of 14 citizens from various walks of life was formed to investigate the potential of a municipal wireless network covering the city.

They’re in the process of finalizing their findings, which they plan to report to the city council on Nov. 13,  Lindahl’s said, adding that his impression of the situation is it doesn’t seem like a good fit for Eden Prairie right now.

There are several reasons for this, among them the current level of service that he said is close to 100 percent coverage in the community and the rolling topography in Eden Prairie, not to mention that new poles erected for the purpose of holding routers might create an eyesore that residents don’t appreciate. Then there’s the philosophical question of what government should do.

“There’s some concern whether or not a municipality can keep up with the technology that is changing so fast and make economic sense,” he said. “We’re talking about the city getting involved in a service that has been historically provided by the private sector. Should government get involved if the private sector is already doing it?”

Readers can contact Forrest Adams at fadams@swpub.com. 

What is Wi-Fi?

Short for Wireless Fidelity

Used to log onto Internet wirelessly

Hot Spot: Area to log onto a Wi-Fi network

How does it work?

Wireless router connected to the Internet

·          Transmits data through radio signals.