Portland's romance with "free" public citywide wi-fi just gets funnier every day. Now it looks as though MetroFi, the outfit that Li'l Opie Sten has picked out to set the network up, is partnering in at least one other city with AT&T, of all people. MetroFi has been having a little trouble lately getting its own investors, because, well, some people (like I) have a few doubts about the soundness of its business model. So now to get the job done, suddenly it's riding in a sidecar alongside the AT&T tank. Some speculate that eventually MetroFi will be swallowed up, leaving the city with AT&T. Sounds logical to me.

But hey now, is that rich or what? Sten has spent most of his career on a vendetta against big private utility companies, and here his wireless toy may turn out to worsen the big-money stranglehold over Portlanders' access to high-speed internet. Chalk another one up for the Big Idea Guy.