Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Chris Pritchard

Tropos Networks today announced the launch of Oklahoma City's 555-square-mile citywide Wi-Fi network, calling it "the largest city owned and operated municipal Wi-Fi mesh network in the world."

There's a catch, though - and this is key. "The network is used for public safety and other City operations," the company announced. "At this time it does not provide wireless Internet access to the public."

Lately, this is exactly what's been happening - while public-access Wi-Fi has been failing, citywide wireless networks for public safety have been prospering. Over time, those same public safety networks might well provide an opening for future public-access networks - but we'll just have to wait and see...

More here from WirelessWeek ... more here from Unstrung ... more here from Computerworld ... more here from the AP ... more here from NetworkWorld ... more here from AHN ... and the press release is here.