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Thursday, Feb. 28, 2013 | 11 a.m.
Within the next several months, Las Vegas will unveil free wireless Internet access in a limited downtown area.
Jace Radke, city spokesman, said free Wi-Fi would be activated in two phases: The first phase will include an area bound by Charleston Boulevard on the south, U.S. 95 to the north, Interstate 15 to the west and Eighth Street to the east. Phase two will add an area bound by Charleston to the north, Wyoming Avenue to the south, Las Vegas Boulevard to the east and Main Street to the west.
Most of the combined area is populated by businesses and law offices but also included are four high-rise residential buildings.
The city has talked for years about free wireless Internet downtown. In 2007 city officials signed agreements for two companies to install necessary equipment on streetlights and traffic signals. Little has been heard since then about moving forward.
However, the city also wants to be keep growing its cottage technology industry, which is being spearheaded by the move of Zappos from Henderson to the old City Hall later this year.
Radke didn’t have a specific timetable for activation but said it would happen within the next several months.
Joe Schoenmann doesn’t just cover downtown, he lives and works there. Schoenmann is Greenspun Media Group’s embedded downtown journalist, working from an office in the Emergency Arts building.
Vegas rocks! The REAL City limits of Las Vegas - not that mess to the south.
No mention of the implementation costs or the yearly cost? Seems odd not to mention the price of this. I like the idea but just wondering what the bill is...
DTLV WIFI should have been done in 2007-08. The city started investigating this in 2003. Suppliers have come in to the city offering to install the system for free in exchange for the rights to hang the cable and hold the franchise agreement (so they can sell more commercial services). Every other urban center has already done this as an economic development incentive: Las Vegas is almost a decade behind the eight ball on this one...
If you have free wifi I will spend my money there, if you don't I will go somewhere else. I don't go to casinos anymore that don't have it.