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The construction of a wireless Internet network is now de rigueur for many North American cities, right alongside aims to develop better public transport systems or inspire eye-catching architecture.

Yet that task looks trickier to achieve after two high-profile wireless broadband projects recently ran into trouble.

First, Chicago put its plans on hold last week for a network that would have let users browse the Web without a land-line connection. The business case, unfortunately, just didn't work.

Plans to construct a similar network in San Francisco fell apart a few days later, even though the project was supported by Internet giant Google Inc. That's after EarthLink Inc., the company that was charged with building the network, pulled out because of concerns about whether it could recoup its expenses. (EarthLink itself announced a major restructuring the same week.)

These events throw into question whether the rush to build so-called municipal WiFi networks, including here in Canada, is wise.

“In Chicago and in many other cities, a municipal WiFi network was initially envisioned as a way to provide cheaper, high-speed access to consumers,” Hardik Bhatt, Chicago's chief information officer, said last week in a statement.

“But given the rapid pace of changing technology, in just two short years, the marketplace has altered significantly.”

There are several reasons why cities want to build these wireless networks. One aim is to make sure that all citizens have affordable access to the Internet. Chicago, for example, wanted to offer the service for free in schools and key public spots.

Cities are using WiFi, the technology that got its start enabling hot spots in coffee shops, for their wireless Internet projects. By putting up enough of these WiFi devices on street lights and other posts, a large wireless mesh will blanket the city.

Some cities have gone ahead with their WiFi plans, even amid talk about the costs and spotty coverage for such networks. Toronto Hydro Telecom Inc., for example, launched the country's biggest WiFi network across the downtown core last year. It charges users to access the service.

Toronto Hydro Telecom president David Dobbin said in May that he aims to expand the network throughout Toronto if the return on investment is sufficient.

But others are scaling back or scrapping their grand municipal WiFi plans. U.S. market research firm In-Stat said last week that shipments of WiFi mesh equipment will rise more than 70 per cent this year, then taper off after that.

“Cities will continue to deploy municipal mesh networks, but the rate of new deployments after 2008 will slow, due to concerns over the business model,” In-Stat analyst Daryl Schoolar wrote in the report.

Indeed, Chicago said expenses for building its WiFi network were much more than forecast.

As a result, “these networks are unlikely to succeed without extraordinary financial support from the local government,” the city said.

For now, some in the municipal WiFi industry are keeping a brave front.

“It's a new era for municipal WiFi,” read one pitch for an upcoming conference in the United States. “Put aside the hype as well as the misplaced (dead wrong) predictions of doom. Wireless initiatives are actually paying tangible dividends.”

Nevertheless, it's hard to ignore the fact that two of the speakers on the program come from the now municipal WiFi-less cities of San Francisco and Chicago.