Microsoft and JiWire are planning to bring you some free wi-fi lovin’ on a city wide scale. The duo is currently testing the service in two cities, Portland, Oregon and Oakland County, Michigan.

Google and Earthlink are achieving something similar in San Francisco at the moment, offering a free, ad based level of service (in addition to ad free, paid services) when it unleashes its wi-fi network on the city. The ads are text based, but JiWire and Microsoft plan to deploy a less intrusive method.

Net surfers will have to watch a 30 second commercial before being granted access to the network. Microsoft and JiWire will also offer banner advertisements, although it is unknown if this is in addition to or in place of the 30 second commercial.

MetroFi is currently building the network in Portland and already offers the service throughout parts of the city. MetroFi uses advertising in order to defray the cost of wi-fi but can’t seem to make enough money in order to truly support the service, making $2 to $3 for every 1,000 impressions.

JiWire’s CEO, Kevin McKenzie, says his company can truly support the cost of maintaining a city-wide wi-fi network. With the help of Microsoft, he plans to reel in $35 to $150 per 1,000 impressions, much better than MetroFi.

Microsoft, JiWire, Google, and Earthlink are all pioneers in the developing free, public wi-fi business. The whole situation seems very similar to the days when cellular phone networks were just getting off the ground, and Motorola found itself competing with At&T to develop the first usable network. Oddly enough, the two competitors ended up working together with Motorola developing the first successful handset and AT&T developing the network technology. Perhaps something similar will occur in the computer’s version of the same battle.

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Entry was posted on Friday, July 20th, 2007 at 1:57 pm under Microsoft, Wi-Fi.

Read more entries by Danny Mendez.
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