The Colorado Wireless Communities network is seeking alternative municipal wireless options, as the company originally selected to implement the project has yet to raise enough money to support it.
Boulder-based C-Com has struggled to come up with the $15 million to $20 million it would take to install a wireless network providing data and voice services to more than 600,000 people in the northwest metro area, spanning 10 cities and 200 square miles.
The goal of the project is to create a third pipe of services into the home that would compete with cable and telecommunications companies.
“Maybe that was a little too ambitious,” said CWC member and Lakewood information-technology director Boris Naschansky. “There are other vendors we’d like to have conversations with.”
He said C-Com had “a number of goals that could be beneficial to our communities and operations,” such as public-safety, commercial and residential services.
C-Com is still looking to raise an undisclosed amount of money to build a small, 1-square- mile pilot of the network.
“We are continuing our fundraising effort and look forward to serving the CWC,” said C-Com president William Sweeney. “Fundraising is difficult, especially with the market.”
But part of that difficulty has to do with potential investors wary of municipal Wi-Fi projects, as efforts in other cities such as Philadelphia have hit a wall.
Naschansky said CWC may look to deploy Wi-Fi hotspots in certain areas instead of aiming for 100 percent coverage.
Last August, CWC signed a letter of intent to work with C-Com, as the company looked to raise the money necessary to install the network, but a formal contract was never signed.
Kimberly S. Johnson: 303-954-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com
