Aurora, Illinois Announces Free Wireless

From Internet.com's Wi-Fi Planet:

Aurora, Illinois was the first city in the United States to install public street lights. Look for wireless equipment on many of those lights providing the populace with free access (for the price of looking at an ad) by the end of this year.

Aurora, pop. 170,000, which issued an RFP late last year looking for companies to install a citywide network, said today it's working with California-based MetroFi on a deployment that should cover the entire 42 square mile city.

MetroFi provides almost identical service in the Silicon Valley towns of Cupertino, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale. Access for anyone with Wi-Fi equipment is free at speeds of 1Mbps download and 256Kbps upload; users who want to avoid the commercials can pay $20 a month...

The rest of the story: <http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/>