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Portland, Oregon has brought the first part of the free city-wide WiFi network online. The plans call for a complete WiFi umbrella over this Pacific Northwest city to be completed in early 2008. This will give anyone in the city limits free access to the Internet using wireless technology. That is free, as in no pay, nothing, nada, zip. But even free has a price, and in this case, there are banner ads on the pages. A subscription fee of $20/month will remove the ads. But, hey, for free Internet, I could live with a few ads.

 Current coverage extends fo a two mile radius of the downtown Pioneer Square, and one other neighborhood. The plans call the network to eventually reach 95% of all of the cities indoor and outdoor areas. MetroFi, a leader in free, ad-based internet access, is providing the hardware. The Portland Wi-Fi network is modeled on wireless broadband networks that MetroFi has previously built and operates in cities like Aurora, Ill., Foster City, Cupertino, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose and Concord, Calif. The Portland network is the largest undertaken by MetroFi, and funding is also provided by Microsoft.

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