CHICAGO — Only two years after it made headlines as the hot new thing, municipal Wi-Fi is making headlines again — as a technology trend that is DOA.

“Neither one is true,” said Jim Freeze, senior vice president of marketing and alliances for BelAir Networks, a Canadian company providing the wireless technology to many municipalities. “It wasn’t true when everyone thought broadband wireless was going to be available free everywhere, and it’s not true now when people are saying it is dead.”

The WiMAX World show being held here is, in fact, showcasing where municipal Wi-Fi is working — in places such as Boston, Corpus Christi, Tex., and Minneapolis, as well as where municipal networks are adopting WiMAX technology, including Grand Rapids, Mich. In virtually every instance, the muni Wi-Fi or WiMAX network was established to do something other than provide free or cheap broadband access, and the municipality involved was an anchor tenant for the Wi-Fi service.

But the demise of highly publicized Wi-Fi plans in cities such as Chicago, Houston and San Francisco, and the pullback of muni Wi-Fi pioneers such as EarthLink, has the general media singing the Wi-Fi blues. It’s a tune companies such as BelAir are concerned will turn off municipalities that could benefit from well-designed Wi-Fi networks.

“We hope people look to Minneapolis as a model,” Freeze said. “And not just because they are using our equipment. They were thoughtful about what they proposed to do, and from the beginning, they said the main objectives were public safety and economic development. The city’s belief was that if you want a world-class city, you need a world-class infrastructure, and they believe broadband is critical to that.”

BelAir is actually seeing more proposals from cities now that other Wi-Fi companies are leaving the market, he said. “We have been asked to come in and replace their equipment,” Freeze said. “Our muni Wi-Fi business is actually doing pretty well.”

The same issues that plagued Wi-Fi could also impact WiMAX planning, said Roberta Wiggins, an analyst for Yankee Group, in a presentation Tuesday at the show. In fact, cities interested in WiMAX need to learn from the Wi-Fi experience, she said.

“We see WiMAX and the Wi-Fi Digital Cities converging,” Wiggins said. “WiMAX networks lack a business case; they need to learn from Digital Cities.”

Digital Cities is the Wi-Fi program launched by Intel and others to help municipalities discover how they could improve city functions using Wi-Fi networks.

WiMAX can be overlaid on existing networks; because it requires less infrastructure, it can be a more cost-effective way of providing broadband coverage over a wider area than Wi-Fi, but it also is likely to need anchor tenancy to be of use to a municipality, Wiggins said, adding that cities interested in WiMAX need to explore potential partnerships.

Grand Rapids, Mich., is partnering with Clearwire to create one of the first, if not the first, sizeable municipality to go WiMAX. There are more than 1 million people in the metro area, and it is growing, said Sally Wesorik, wireless project manager, in a WiMAX World panel session. The city might have rejected Clearwire’s proposal but for the advice of a consultant, she admitted: Carl Edwards of Excelsio. It is now preparing to use the system for public safety, economic development, digital inclusion, improved city services and access for visitors and citizens.

“We wanted a carrier-class, reliable, scalable, licensed, secure network with better indoor penetration, and that is what we think WiMAX will provide,” Wesorik said. Because Grand Rapids is partnering with Clearwire, there is also no major infrastructure cost to the city, she said.

The ability of WiMAX to offer more pervasive coverage at higher bandwidth speeds could well make the new technology more appealing to municipalities, but they must also explore whether spectrum is available for the newer version of WiMAX — 802.16E — or whether they will be comfortable using unlicensed spectrum for 802.16D, which doesn’t offer mobility.

Because of the in-building penetration issues, skeptics question whether Wi-Fi will ever truly compete with DSL and cable modems as a broadband access technology, as WiMAX is projected to do. But even there the early deployment failures are overshadowing what’s possible, Wi-Fi defenders say.

“Initially, Wi-Fi networks were rolled out and applications were turned on with very little testing and integration,” said Angela Singhal Whiteford of Nortel Networks. “The truth is, you need a [customer premises equipment] device to boost the signal for in-building penetration, and that is a critical piece of the service provider’s responsibility.”

Wi-Fi service providers can ship in-building signal-boosting devices to consumers just as cable companies and DSL providers today mail their customers modems, routers and self-install guides, Freeze said.

He is particularly concerned that smaller municipalities will be discouraged from trying Wi-Fi because of the negative coverage, when it can provide broadband services in places where DSL would be too expensive.

Bresnan Communications recently deployed BelAir and Fujitsu Network Communications gear to offer free high-speed Wi-Fi access over its cable infrastructure in Billings, Mont.

“This is a phenomenal opportunity for Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities to deploy,” Freeze said, “especially because they are in areas where there aren’t a ton of tall buildings, and there is less competition in broadband but every bit as much demand.”