Belair for Minneapolis

Minneapolis has signed on to become the anchor-tenant of a municipal Wi-Fi network that will be owned and operated by service provider US Internet. The project will span the entire 60-square-mile city and will offer businesses and residents high-speed Internet access from 1 to 3 Mbps for a current cost of $19.99 per month. US Internet also will offer a $24 or $29 product that will provide 5 or 6 Mbps for those niche customers that require greater bandwidth. US Internet won the bid with a mobile broadband mesh networking solution from BelAir Networks and will leverage the Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities of the BelAir platform to support emergency services efforts as well as eventual moves to Voice over IP (VoIP) and mobile Wi-MAX. As a Minnesota-based company, Lange says US Internet already had a reputation in the local community and was well positioned to win the contract, but he notes that the BelAir technology was "a big part of the reason we won."