Opinion: Make that the second largest

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Ooops! No sooner had Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared his intention to plan and build ‘the single largest citywide network in the country’ than Houston Mayor Bill White announced a contract with Internet service provider Earthlink to build a citywide wireless network that’s, ummm, 30% larger than the one that might someday spring forth in Los Angeles. The contract could be approved by Houston’s city council as early as tomorrow, with a target for completion in the spring of 2009.

But being the LA boosters that we are, we’ll choose to look at the bright side here. The more cities that attempt massive WiFi projects before we do, the fewer pitfalls there will be left for us to stumble over. Meanwhile, the projected cost of these endeavors continues to come down: Earthlink expects to (un)wire Houston for $60 million, or about $100,000 per square mile, compared to the widely cited estimate of $125,000 per square mile for WiFi installations. Of course, how much it actually costs to build remains to be seen....