Sunday’s Charleston Gazette-Mail has a story covering the plan to cover the East End of Charleston with Wi-Fi connectivity. Details are thin, but this is similar to the efforts of other cities who have attempted to spark economic activity by treating Wi-Fi broadband coverage as a public utility.

Municipal Wi-Fi was on a real tear during 2005-2006. There is even a helpful web site to track developments in muni wireless projects. But non-bleeding edge municipalities have been watching the results of the early adopter cities with interest. Many projects, like Toledo’s, have had a great deal of controversy surrounding them. There are “digital divide” benefits to be realized with a free (or low cost) public approach to broadband. But many are questioning the real economic impact of subsidized coverage. It does help brand an area as somewhat more progressive and tech savvy, if that counts for anything.

More government leaders are beginning to take a practical, “real” ROI approach to determining whether publicly-provided Wi-Fi is a good return on taxpayer dollars. They are looking to attach real applications connected to public safety, utility cost reduction (e.g., meter reading), and even healthcare to see whether those uses could justify the investment. If certain cost reductions enabled by the Wi-Fi are met, the fact that a large number of citizens and small businesses could enjoy free wireless broadband is seen as gravy vs. the primary justification.

Here in West Virginia we have one of the rare small-town experiments in broad Wi-Fi coverage. Glenville, lead by Larry Baker and Glenville State College, partnered several years ago with the Center for Appalachian Network Access (CANA) to pilot a town- and campus-wide project. The West Virginia High Tech Consortium is also testing a broad Wi-Fi coverage project linked to enabling first responder emergency units to more effectively communicate via Wi-Max (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access). These projects are providing very useful insights into the benefits and challenges of wireless broadband coverage, including costs, adoption hurdles and more.

In the East End of Charleston, it will be critical for the organizers to identify some “hard” uses of Wi-Fi and demonstrate some measurable economic growth or cost savings of some sort before the public at large will likely get on board. But cheers to those organizing this worthy test which could end up providing guidance for long-term policy in this area.