A demonstration area for the city-wide Wi-Fi project was supposed to be ready and working in January. Last week, the Milwaukee Common Council extended the deadline to July 7.

The project is being led and funded by Midwest Fiber Networks.,”

Milwaukee's Wi-Fi is pretty slow.

A demonstration area for the city-wide Wi-Fi project was supposed to be ready and working in January. Last week, the Milwaukee Common Council extended the deadline to July 7.

The project is being led and funded by Midwest Fiber Networks.

According to Cheri Grainger, vice president for strategic initiatives at Midwest Fiber, there are currently 22 poles in the demonstration area that have antennas and service. The area needs 100 poles to work.

Five of the antennas that are already in place are on Marquette's campus. Grainger said it will take 3,000 to 4,000 antennas for the entire city to have wireless access.

The boundaries of the test area are North 10th Street, North 47th Street, West Canal Street and West Vliet Street.

"Both the company and we at the city underestimated the complexity of installing this technology," said Randy Gschwind, chief information officer for the City of Milwaukee.

Grainger said one of the main problems causing the delay is the company has run into some "bureaucratic issues."

"We didn't think it would be a big deal to put antennas on poles, but the permits took longer than anticipated," Grainger said.

Alderman Bob Bauman of the Fourth District, which includes Marquette, said each site has to be individually engineered for the antennas to function properly.

"It's not a small job and we understand that," Bauman said. "This is new technology for public works to deal with."

Despite the need for a deadline extension and some roadblocks with waiting for permits, Gschwind said he thinks the city and Midwest Fiber are working well together.

"There has been a learning curve," he said. "They're working well and are starting to get up to speed. They'll make the new deadline for the demonstration area."

However, Bauman wasn't sure the test area would be fully operational by the new deadline.

"I think they will, at least with respect to equipment, but then you have to get it up and running," he said.

The overall completion date did not change with last week's extension and the project is still expected to be finished by March of 2009.

Once operational, there will be about 60 public interest Web sites available on the network, even for people who don't have an Internet Service Provider, Bauman said.

"It will be a nice feature for visitors and people who only occasionally use the Internet," Bauman said.

Gschwind said he thinks the new wireless network will help Milwaukee both economically and socially and that it will give residents Internet access at very low rates or possibly for free. He also said it will help with many of the city's mobile applications, such as city workers who spend most of their day out of the office.

"It's important that the city gets both wired and unwired at the same time to keep up with technology," Gschwind said.

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