Philly's WiFi service is still a year away, but there's already a broadband option for Center City that's even cheaper because of the coming municipal service. Instead of $40, a local company is offering wireless broadband for just $20 a month through a new and innovative technology.

Tom Christie of Closed Networks says he'd like to be able to charge consumers more — what entrepreneur wouldn't? — but admits that the city-owned wireless system's proposed price of $20 is driving down his ["Strings Attached," Slant, Sept. 1, 2005]. Still, the fledgling company, located at Fourth and South streets, hopes to attract customers with faster-than-WiFi speeds. The company uses a proprietary technology that piggybacks on the same frequencies used by consumers for their portable phones or walkie-talkies.

Unlike licensed frequencies that are dedicated for cellular or broadcast use, you, I or anyone can transmit at will on a vast array of public frequencies, as long as you limit your power. By analogy, anyone can walk down a sidewalk; you just can't block anyone else. Closed Networks moves data at low power on these public thoroughfares.

With the arrival of Closed Networks, two of Wireless Philadelphia's promises of competition and innovation are coming true — even before its first paying customer. And the city's other goal, of universal access, will directly benefit start-ups like Closed Networks. As the city's WiFi network breaks ground, entrepreneurs will follow to the other side of the digital divide.

Will start-ups like Christie's eventually make Wireless Philadelphia obsolete? Maybe, but not before the city's system ensures that every citizen has access to the Internet, and Philly becomes an incubator for innovation.

Closed Networks is the kind of company that Philly's growing virtual infrastructure ought to foster. Cable and telephone companies have had to invest millions in laying wire; even WiFi must build out a network of external repeaters.

But Closed Networks uses a different system. Each user gets an antenna to receive his own data, and that same antenna will also be used to relay other users' information. (A firewall between the antenna and router ensures security.)

In a conventional setup, the more people that share the pipe, the slower the data flows. In Closed Networks' approach, more users mean more repeaters, so the network should move faster with increased use.

Does it actually work? It should, though Christie admits that till now no one has built a system of this magnitude. Still, for $20 a month, I'm having an antenna installed at my place in Society Hill — if only for the sheer coolness of the technology.

Whether Christie's scheme will succeed remains to be seen. But this much is sure: Closed Networks' emergence already signals a success for the city's wireless plans.

A friend and I standing outside City Hall spy a hefty woman on the far side of the traffic circle emerge from a car and wade into the vehicular merry-go-round. Four lanes of cars, trucks, taxis and a wailing police cruiser somehow open a path.

Staring straight ahead, ignoring crosswalks, the woman reaches City Hall and trundles inside — while neither she nor the traffic miss a beat. It's a beautiful sight; Philly street choreography at its best.

Our pedestrians are the luckiest in the world. Designed centuries ago, Center City is a mecca for two-legged transportation, where walkers still enjoy considerable rights of way. Signs remind drivers to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, and it's a courtesy that seems to extend from one crosswalk to the next.

Nobody would dare wade into a traffic circle in South Jersey, much less try to muddle through the mania around the Arc de Triomphe, Piccadilly Circus or Columbus Circle. But in Philadelphia, walkers rule.

In Philly, where they'll even ticket errant trash, it seems you've got to try hard to get tagged for playing in the traffic. As of August, police had issued a grand total of eight tickets this year for jaywalking: one in North Philly, one around 65th and Woodland streets and six in Germantown at School House Lane. No one was ticketed in Center City.

Now, it ain't exactly legal, but I say keep on jaywalking. Dustin Hoffman, as Ratso Rizzo in Midnight Cowboy, had to bang on the hoods of aggressive New York City drivers, yelling, "I'm walking here!" He'd be given safe passage in Philly.

Our cobbled and narrow streets may annoy drivers. But Philadelphia's classic infrastructure is actually a boon to a certain kind of civility; as are even its potholes, which also bang on the front ends of cars, reminding drivers that, hey, we're walking here.