February 9, 2010

Google funds local wi-fi
City accepts grant of $100,000

By Rodger Nichols
The Chronicle

     The Dalles City Council voted Monday to accept a $100,000 grant from Google to build, operate and maintain a wi-fi cloud in the downtown business district.
     The grant money would be used to purchase and install the equipment and maintain it for three years.
     Under terms of the grant, the city would provide wi-fi Internet access on a 24-hour basis for free for the first three years.
     “I was floored and ecstatic,” said Councilor Brian Ahier about the news. Ahier serves as the city’s representative on QLife, the city/county joint agency which installed a fiber optic cable loop in The Dalles. He said QLife had been trying to budget money for a feasibility study on the subject for several years.
     In a memorandum to the council about the grant, City Manager Nolan Young said QLife did have some funds that could be added to the project to increase the service area beyond the downtown service district.
     “We want to make sure that it includes the marine terminal location, Chamber [of Commerce] offices (where a number of visitors make initial contact with the area) and Thompson Park. We propose extending into the rest of downtown as much as we are able to.
     “The installation will include placing antennas on light poles, traffic signals and city buildings as well as negotiating with private owners to place antennas on their buildings to further extend the reach of the system.”
     The motion authorized the city manager to accept the Google grant and to negotiate with QLife to operate the system. Young said the city intends to turn the equipment over to QLife at the end of the three-year period.
     Other terms in the agreement provide that Google gets final approval over the “content, look and feel, and design” of the splash page and the landing page, and that the city agrees it will not perform any content filtering. Google also offers “a reasonable amount of general engineering consultation to guide the installation and setup” of the equipment in the first 90 days.
     “This is good,” said councilor Jim Wilcox.