The fastest free Wi-Fi in the nation?

One of the United States’ most successful muni Wi-Fi examples is located in a small city in northern Oklahoma Home to 25,000 residents, Ponca City is 90 miles equidistant from Wichita, Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

It has a world-class wireless network providing free Wi-Fi across its 25 square miles. The free wireless mesh service -- which is so fast and forward-looking that Kansas City, Apple and Google came calling to check it out -- has been so successful that Ponca City again is hosting delegations from Oklahoma, throughout the US and places as far away as Australia and Italy.

So what makes Ponca City’s wireless network a long-term success, and what suggestions do city officials have for other areas that want to replicate it? It all starts with fiber, said Technology Services Director Craige Baird and City Manager Craig Stephenson. But fiber’s price tag stops many local governments in their tracks, especially when they want to do it in a year instead of building a network out slowly over a number of years. Ponca City began 15 years ago, steadily adding fiber for city communications and disaster recovery. Today it has 350 miles of fiber that have opened vast opportunities to the city and its residents.