Today at 10:30 a.m., the wires will be cut in Corpus Christi, as EarthLink announces the completion of the citywide Wi-Fi network there. What began as a city-run network to enable more efficient reading of gas meters now becomes a privately owned network, as Corpus Christi’s city government becomes both the anchor tenant and the fiber network provider to EarthLink’s wireless Internet access service.

While other larger cities were looking for service providers to build them a wireless network, Corpus Christi built its own, under the direction of City Manager Skip Noe, becoming a pilot city for Intel’s Digital Cities project. Initially, the cost of the Wi-Fi infrastructure was to be paid for by the savings garnered from automated meter reading for the city-owned gas utility, but the city added public-safety applications such as a car-tracking system for police dispatch and wireless video connections between local hospitals and first responders.

After local residents discovered they could use the city Wi-Fi network at no charge for Internet access, the city decided to look into a partnership with a local provider. Noe said at the time that the level of customer service and support required to sell Internet access on its own made that option unappealing to Corpus Christi.

Ultimately, EarthLink was chosen as the network operator and purchased the existing network for $5.5 million -- about $1.5 million less than the city had spent to build it -- and then added about $900,000 in upgrades, said Don Berryman, president of EarthLink Municipal Networks.

“We spent that amount to add more nodes and more servers to ensure a strong signal everywhere within the city, because we need that,” he said. EarthLink now pays the city a monthly fee to use its fiber network to connect access points and backhaul traffic, and the city pays EarthLink for its use of the wireless network, Berryman said.

“Corpus Christi is somewhat unique,” he said. “Without the city’s real strong involvement and participation, a citywide network is not as viable. It’s a much better situation now, with a public-private partnership.”

The Texas community has also pioneered having a diversity of applications on the Wi-Fi network, Berryman added, and has carefully proven in each one. Its businesslike approach is one that other small to mid-sized cities can learn from, he said.

“In larger cities with dense population, the business case for Wi-Fi is not that big an issue,” he said. “But in small to mid-sized cities, putting in all the infrastructure to provide Internet access is not viable yet, unless you have a city or some other entity as an anchor tenant.”

Berryman, who has testified before Congress on Wi-Fi’s viability as a broadband access technology to close the digital divide, said consumers who want to use the citywide Wi-Fi network are probably going to need to buy a piece of CPE that will boost the wireless signal from a laptop computer that comes equipped with Wi-Fi.

“We have a CPE device, a 200 milliwatt antenna, that you can plug into your computer,” he said. “Most laptops that are equipped with Wi-Fi are between 30 and 40 milliwatts. With a little bit larger antenna, you can receive the signal from inside. About 60% of our home users are using them.”

The devices cost $69.95, but EarthLink will also rent them to consumers for $3 to $4 a month, he said.