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LA County Eyes a Trade: Free Wi-Fi for User Data, Ad Rights

The county began considering the partnership idea last summer. Now, officials say they’re confident that the request for information will yield results.

Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation is looking into doing a trade-out with a telecom or Internet provider: Equip the county’s parks with free Wi-Fi, and in exchange, gain user data and a platform for free advertising. Of the county’s 182 parks, 30 already have free Wi-Fi.

County officials believe that park users would benefit from Internet access to get information about parks, reserve picnic areas and other amenities, register for recreation programs, and sign up to volunteer at their local parks.

“To this end, the county is committed to providing free Wi-Fi at all county parks,” the RFI says.

If the county proceeds, the selected vendor would perform at its own expense the survey, design and installation of services “necessary to provide park patrons with consistently available internet access at speeds allowing access [to] all social media sites without delay.”

Any vendor chosen would be required to provide:

  • A flowchart of the workflow and the suggested roles and responsibilities between the county and the company for every stage of the process of implementing and providing ongoing Wi-Fi — implementation, preparation, advertising, marketing and administration.
  • A preliminary timeline including all planning and implementation, with milestones to measure the progress of the project.
  • A plan describing approaches for how the vendor would market services to the public, and how it plans to advertise at each park.
  • An overview of how the selected vendor would “monitor and mitigate any inherent security risks associated with providing free WiFi at county parks.”   
Interested companies are asked to confirm their ability to adhere to the county’s Internet filtering policy to prevent access to inappropriate sites. Vendors are also asked to “provide a description of your firm’s current environmental policies and practices.”

Under the proposal, the county would grant the selected provider advertising privileges at county parks in exchange for free Wi-Fi.

“Although this is an RFI for no-cost services, it does still require that we put the opportunity out to bid,” explained Rebecca Friedman, media services director for the county’s Internal Services Department.

County officials say they’re confident that the request for information will yield results.

“Vendors have expressed to us that this type of opportunity allows them to gain visibility, advertising (via the marketing piece), and utilization of demographic information,” Friedman told Techwire. “Telecom/Wi-Fi providers have let us know that this approach was of interest to them.”

The county began exploring the idea of free Internet in the parks last summer.

Dennis Noone is Executive Editor of Industry Insider. He is a career journalist, having worked at small-town newspapers and major metropolitan dailies including USA Today in Washington, D.C.