City-wide Wi-Fi wireless internet service is being explored.

The City of Santa Clarita is exploring the possibility of installing a city-wide wi-fi system so Santa Clarita residents would be able to access the internet from just about anywhere around town.

The hold-up to this plan is Southern California Edison, which owns most of the power poles in the area. The plan would require that wi-fi antennas be placed on the power poles, and Edison is apparently concerned that this would take too much power.

Of course it’s not a secret that Edison and its services tend to be a little behind the times, and this is no exception. They expect to have a decision on this within the next few months.

Other utility companies say that existing streetlights can be easily updated to accomodate the wi-fi, and that the wi-fi takes very little power.

The City of Santa Clarita is exploring different options with wi-fi service provider MetroFi. One option would be to provide free service to users while charging local business to run ads on the system. People not wanting to see the ads could pay about $20/month for the service.

Seems like a pretty good idea… I wouldn’t mind seeing ads when I was out surfing the internet in a park or while waiting for my son to get out of football practice. Of course I already have Verizon Broadband wireless for my laptop, but that’s a bit slow in some areas around town.

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