The City of Somerville is working with local businesses to set up a free wireless internet network (Wi-Fi) in Davis Square.
Mark Horan, spokesman for Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone, said that extending Wi-Fi to Davis is "not absolutely definite but it's something that's being looked at very seriously."
He says that the city is researching how other cities, such as Portland, Oregon, have installed wireless networks.
For the city, the greatest obstacle is money. "I don't think the city has the money to spend on a network so we would have to find other ways to get some," said Horan.
One method, he said, would be to ask for financial contributions or sites for equipment installation from local vendors.
Horan foresees cooperation with Davis Square businesses on the issue. The city will target companies interested in doing business with the administration, he said, and solicit them first.
The push for Wi-Fi in Davis isn't coming entirely from within city limits. Michael Oh, President of Boston-based Tech Superpowers, has been approaching businesses in Somerville directly to push the project forward. Oh has already brought Wi-Fi to Newbury Street in Boston.
Although Oh is not in touch with the city of Somerville right now, he previously worked with former Mayor Dorothy Kelly Gay's administration on the Wi-Fi project.
Oh is seeking a wide variety of businesses to sponsor the network. He compared the Somerville project to a similar installation underway in Salem, for which a bank donated a considerable sum.
"If Somerville were to get sponsorship like that," he said, "the network would come together in a snap."
According to Oh, the biggest problem is that businesses would rather pursue their separate interests than come together to improve Davis Square as a whole. "The question is whether or not Davis wants to coordinate itself as a community to get Wi-Fi," he said. "There are individual businesses talking about putting it in themselves, but while that gives them a competitive advantage it fragments [sic] the community sense of the project."
Gus Rancatore, owner of Someday Caf?© in Davis Square, is getting Wi-Fi installed through company resources, independent of city initiatives. Starbucks and Diesel Caf?© already provide their customers with Wi-Fi, at a cost. Although Rancatore was involved in the city's cooperative push for Wi-Fi, he blames the lag in the process that made him work on his own on the change in administrations. "Someone will have to catch up with the twenty first century," he said.
Installing this network would not only provide a level of convenience for Somerville residents and visitors, Oh said, but it would also "foster the impression that everyone is working together to provide a good service for the community in general."
While the city currently has no definite plans to install Wi-Fi, Horan agrees that a Wi-Fi network in Davis would be beneficial to the city, as it would, "encourage people to be part of some of our most significant commercial districts. It makes Somerville a place where you want to live and work," he said.
Horan stressed that Somerville is known as a technologically innovative city -- for example, it was the first to have more than one cable supplier, he said.
In addition, Mayor Curtatone is "interested in doing innovative things," especially if they can attract attention to Somerville businesses, Horan said.
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