As expected, municipal Wi-Fi network provider MetroFi is switching off its free Wi-Fi service in Portland, as well as smaller projects in California and Illinois. The company ceased expansion of its existing networks last fall and said earlier this year that they would be shut down if no buyers emerged.

Portland wireless chief Logan Kleier, who was instrumental in getting the MetroFi deal signed and underway, responded in surprisingly philosophical fashion to the project's end.

"It's disappointing but not unexpected," Kleier said in a telephone interview. MetroFi had contacted the city government last month, indicating it was looking for a buyer for the existing network, which covers around 30% of the Oregon city, and offering a price of just under $900,000. The city declined.

"We told them the city is not interested in paying those sums to complete the network," Kleier said.

Many cities across the U.S. have been left with superfluous wireless gear as companies including EarthLink and MetroFi, the two largest backers of municipal wireless, have backed out of their deals to erect networks and fund them via ad sales and deals with local governments and businesses. Some cities have threatened to sue the network builders on learning of the pullouts; in Philadelphia, a group of local investors formed a company to acquire and run the Wi-Fi system for the benefit of the city and its economy.

Portland mayor Tom Potter, said Kleier, has taken more of an easy-come easy-go attitude toward the vicissitudes of the wireless business.

"I'm happy to see that it accomplished what it has," said Kleier, whose official title is project manager for the city's Bureau of Technology Services, "and that everyone seems to be staying within the parameters that were originally established: the philosophy that the private sector is responsible for the capital risk of building the network."

And, like many cities where municipal wireless has been tried, Portland is hardly short on Internet access options.

"I think it's tricky to define 'need,'" explained Kleier, "because if you define it as the need for free wireless access, that [model] would likely disappear... "Throughout this process people have defined their needs very differently."

One need that won't be met is the ideal of bridging the digital divide by making free or very-low-cost Internet access available for low-income households in the city.

"The city government never made Internet access for all a priority in and of itself," noted Kleier.

Other MetroFi projects going dark this week include Concord, Cupertino, Foster City, San Jose, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, all in Northern California, Riverside in Southern California and Aurora and Naperville, Illinois.