Courtesy of the City of Riverside
Courtesy of the City of Riverside

On May 6, the Riverside city council voted to end the 7-year-old citywide wireless network called SmartRiverside. One goal of the free Wi-Fi program was to benefit 3600 families in the local community — numbers the program failed to meet.

“The Wi-Fi system the city used was old and slow,” said city council member Mike Gardner. “It did not work well with mobile devices.” The network costs about $800,000 annually to operate and maintain and it only covers 66 percent of Riverside, falling short of the city’s initial goals of 95 percent. Gardner further suggested that when the Wi-Fi network was used at all, the majority of users who signed on were not repeat users.

Gardner also admits that there are some local residents who currently use SmartRiverside for their desktop computers because they are unable to afford commercial Internet. However, he maintained that canceling the wireless network will lessen the city’s financial burden as the program costs a lot of money to maintain but only $200,000 to dismantle.

Nevertheless, Riverside plans to keep some methods of affordable Internet connections for its residents. “The city will be installing a series of hot spots at libraries, community centers and government buildings,” Gardner assured. These hotspots will be found around Main Street and the downtown Riverside mall.