City to hear wireless Web plans

Newport Beach officials are considering a plan that would let people surf not just at the beach, but anywhere in town — on their computers, of course.

The City Council on Tuesday will consider seeking proposals from companies that could provide citywide wireless Internet access.

The council’s communications committee suggested the idea after seeing other cities, such as Anaheim and Corona, pursue citywide Wi-Fi, Councilman Keith Curry said.

“Our goal here is to allow residents to be able to use their laptops on the beach, in the park, at the shopping center — any place they want to use them without having to be tethered to a hotspot,” like Starbucks and other fixed locations, Curry said.

Ideally, the service wouldn’t cost the city much, if anything, but it could be used for city business. The Internet provider would make money from residents’ subscription fees, Newport Beach Asst. City Manager Dave Kiff said.

Wireless transmitters can be mounted on streetlight poles, and Newport Beach owns 95% of the city’s light poles.

“The provider would pay us a nominal fee to use the poles, and we would get maybe some break on access,” Kiff said.

Curry added that city employees could use the service to file reports and get work done in the field. The advantage to residents, he said, is having Internet access anywhere in town.

Ultimately the city would apply the technology to other areas such as traffic management. Curry said traffic cameras connected through the wireless network could help the city adjust signals to respond to an accident or traffic backup, for example.

Although a wealth of Internet services are out there, Kiff said having a citywide provider is a popular idea.

“We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t have a number of residents clamoring for it,” he said.