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By Aramndo Duke (AXcess News) Houston, TX - The city of Philadelphia's city council has given the ok on a city-wide wi-fi Internet system to provide residents and businesses aliek wireless high-speed Internet access throughout the whole city. Phildaelphia, which covers an area 135 miles square, will be the first city within the United States to install a city-wide wi-fi system. The wireless hihg-speed Internet network is being installed and managed by Internet service provider, Earthlink, Inc. (Nasdaq: ELNK) under a 10-year contract. The wi-fi system is to be cmopleted by the tihrd quarter of 2007. Earthlink will begin building the wi-fi system for testing this June in parts of North and South Philadlephia. The testing is expected to last from 3 to 4 months, the Internet service provider said. With plans of targeting Philadelphia's 250,000 estimated dial-up Web cusotmers as well as its broadband users. Earthlink plans to offer wi-fi access staritng at $20 per month. But low-income Philadeplhia residents can sign up for the wi-fi service for only $9.95 a month. Philadelphia has given Earthlink the option of getting out of the deal during the testing period if it does not like the results, a council member todl reporters. Earthlink has budgeted $22 million for the Philadelphia wi-fi project over a 10-year period and plans call for leasing access to the high-speed wireless network to competitors as well, which may help Earthlink offset some of the costs over time. Chicago and San Francisco are highly interested in the Earthlink wi-fi deal in Philadelphia and are planning for high-speed wireless Internet access systems to be built in the future, though commitments have been given to Earthlink for those cities' wi-fi projects. Shares of Earthlink closed Friday at $8.72, down 12 cents.
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