Wi-Fi Networking News' Glenn Fleishman notes that MetroFi, one of the companies that failed to win the contract for San Francisco, has won the contract to provide citywide wireless Internet access in Portland, Oregon.

Fleishman says MetroFi will face some unique challenges that are specific to Portland.

"Portland's politics are complicated, its terrain is topographically diverse, and there's water, water everywhere -- one river borders its north, while another runs north/south down its middle, one of the few in North America that flows north," he writes.

Access will be provided for public use as well as for municipal services like parking meters. "Portland has been using meter stations for some time -- pay at a central station on a block and stick a bar-coded receipt on your window -- so Wi-Fi will probably be a large cost savings over the cellular system they use now," Fleishman writes.

An excellent article in The Oregonian looks at the plans for the deployment in detail, and MetroFi's press release is here.