Earlier this year, the City of Cincinnati announced its intention to explore a municipal wireless broadband initiative through an RFP process, Through a competitive procurement process, the City retained Civitium LLC, a market-leading management consulting firm, to assist and advise with its initiative.  A preliminary analysis and market assessment was completed last month highlighting the roles, risks and potential value that may result from this effort. 

Recent announcements made by some of the top providers in the municipal wireless broadband market, such as Earthlink and AT&T, show that the industry is undergoing a period of rapid change. This means that there are too many unknown factors right now to make this a good time for the City of Cincinnati to enter the market.

The City remains committed to using technology to help make the government more efficient, which was one of the interests in looking at wifi.  The City will continue to monitor the market to determine if the city should revisit wifi or other technologies.