ST. LOUIS - AT&T Inc. has scaled back its plan to blanket the city's 62 square miles with Wi-Fi signals, the wireless Internet service now found in airports and coffee shops.
圣-路易斯 AT&T 决定缩小原来计划将全市62平方英里区域建立Wi-Fi网线网络的范围。互联网服务已经在机场和咖啡店开通。

Instead, AT&T said Friday it will build a Wi-Fi pilot project in the downtown core and expects to have it in service early next year.
AT&T表示计划在市中心试点，预计明年投入运行。

"It's a setback," said John Sondag, vice president of external affairs for AT&T Missouri. "We're disappointed. But we will still learn something."

AT&T had planned to build out the wireless network across the city over two years, under the plan announced in February. It would then provide free Internet service to everyone for 20 hours a month and charge for more time or higher download speeds.

The main problem was that AT&T engineers couldn't find a cheap way to power the network's transmitters, which carry the network signal and send it to people's computers. One estimate required 50 transmitters per square mile.
主要问题是AT&T的工程师们找不廉价的给网络信号发送设备供电的方式。预计每平方英里需要50个信号发送器。

They initially planned to mount the transmitters on city streetlights, but some of those don't have power during the day. Utility poles didn't always provide the straight line of sight necessary to beam the Internet to a computer. Other unsuccessful options were mounting the transmitters on stoplights and buildings and even attaching a battery.

The other problem is how to make money from a municipal Wi-Fi network, which can cost up to $200,000 per square mile to build. Such networks face growing competition from home broadband access, cellular phone companies boosting their own wireless Internet services and the development of new technologies, such as Wi-Max, a more powerful version of Wi-Fi.
另外一个问题是如何从Wi-Fi无线网络上挣钱。建立覆盖每平方英里的无线网络成本高达20万美金。他们同时面临来自家庭宽带，移动电话公司的竞争。