Bright House Networks will be offering a Wi-Fi service in Tampa Bay’s downtown area and riverfront public parks.
The service is available for free for anyone to use for up to 2 hours or 1 GB a month. Once users go over the cap, they can purchase additional time. Bright House Networks didn’t say how much the additional blocks of time would cost, or how many hotspots it will deploy.
“This will make it easier for people to spend more time in our urban, riverfront parks and allow them to work while they play,” said mayor Bob Buckhorn. “Thank you to Bright House Networks for sharing our vision of an active, vibrant riverfront and for making this substantial investment.”
The Wi-Fi service in Tampa is slated to go live by the end of this year. Bright House Networks competes with Verizon in the Tampa Bay area.
“We are pleased to work with Mayor Buckhorn and the city of Tampa to help residents stay connected while enjoying all that Tampa has to offer,” said Craig Cowden, chief network officer and senior vice president of enterprise solutions, Bright House Networks. “Bright House Networks is committed to the communities we live and work in, and we continue to significantly invest in our network and technology infrastructure to provide WiFi access in additional public areas, and make life easier for our customers.”
The Wi-Fi service will be free of advertisements, and will allow any Wi-Fi enabled device, such as a personal computer, tablet or Smartphone, to connect to the Internet.
The entire length of the Tampa Riverwalk, including the soon-to-be completed Kennedy Plaza Segment, as well as Contanchobee, Curtis Hixon Waterfront, and Water Works parks, will all have Wi-Fi available under the agreement. In addition, Bright House Networks has agreed to provide Wi-Fi in Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park in the West River area once renovations are completed.
Bright House Networks has more than 30,000 access points across central Florida, and it’s also a member of the CableWiFi Alliance, the latter of which announced last week that it had 250,000 hotspots nationwide. Other members of the CableWiFi roaming agreement are Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable.
