Who would have guessed?
Google has won the contract to operate San Francisco's municipal wireless network, in conjunction with Earthlink.
San Francisco's mayor Gavin Newsom has described Wi-Fi as "a basic human right" - sort of like gay marriage, but for nerds.
It's a two-tier service, with a free low-speed service available at street level - and if you're lucky, in parts of your apartment - and a faster version available for a tariff of $20 per month. Google and Earthlink beat out bids from Razortooth, NextWLAN, and a consortium including IBM and Cisco, in a final shortlist of six. Incumbent operators including Cingular had been in the initial longlist of over 20 bids.
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