Philadelphia has finished testing a service aimed at a city-wide wireless access system. This will make the city the proud owner of America’s largest citywide Wi-Fi project. The project also intends to provide Wi-Fi to low-income households.

The testing involved a 15-square-mile area of the city in which people could access the network for $21.95 a month. Those who qualified for low-income assistance could get the service for $9.95. The service is going to have free access in parks and other outdoor areas.

The project is scheduled to have service to 135 square miles of the city by the end of 2007. It also aims to provide service to 300,000 households which as of this time have no access to the internet.

Also tied into this project, 2,000 of the neediest customers will receive free refurbished notebooks and a year of service, along with some technical training.

This certainly seems like an interesting and ambitious project.

Source: Reuters