The Best Laid Plans... Go Awry for Minneapolis Broadband

We've all heard the saying, “If you build it, they will come.” But what happens when you build it, but don't use it?

Back in 2006, the city of Minneapolis announced it would spend approximately $1m per year through 2018, to become the largest customer of a new, city-wide Wi-Fi network built by USI Wireless. City Hall would become a hot spot, so that workers could wirelessly go online with their laptops and handheld devices, the city could monitor water meters, send police video wirelessly, and so on. But now, six years later, the Wi-Fi access is largely going unused. The city is still spending $1.25m a year for the Wi-Fi service, yet it's only using 11% of the bandwidth it's paying for—about $140k worth. Most of that usage comes from the 20k or so residents who are using the Wi-Fi hot spots, as well as the handful of city services that actually do employ the wireless network. According to Otto Doll, the chief information officer for Minneapolis, the city hopes to increase usage to 23% by the end of 2012, and to 40% in 2013. According to agreements with USI, the city does accumulate credit for bandwidth it doesn't use, but even that perk seems to be an ironic one—a benefit that Minneapolis will never be able to fully exploit.