Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Tuesday announced a plan to provide free or very cheap wireless internet service across the sprawling city by 2009.

The plan, if successful, would create the largest U.S. municipal Wi-Fi network in terms of covered area and the number of people given access.

"This will give a leg up to our businesses and reach technologically isolated parts of our city," said Villaraigosa at a news conference.

Telecommunications providers and advertisers are likely to bear most of the cost for the project, which the city intends to put out to bid as early as this fall.

The city plans to allow the winning bidder to put antennas on its telephone poles, city buildings and other structures to beam broadband access to residents, schools and businesses.

Such a ubiquitous wireless network would give anyone in Los Angeles an uninterrupted high-speed Internet connection for work, browsing or even phone calls.

More than 300 municipalities in the nationwide already have launched plans for similar networks based on the Wi-Fi technology that has become popular at coffee shops, bookstores, in parks and countless other hot spots.

Villaraigosa said Los Angeles should be able to build on the efforts of San Francisco, Philadelphia, Boston and other major cities across the country.

A proposal to build a Wi-Fi network in San Francisco, where Google and Earthlink agreed to set up and operate the system, have run into opposition over contract details and skepticism about whether it can deliver reliable and cheap wireless service.

The mayor acknowledged some of skepticism surrounding a citywide system but said that the Los Angeles Wi-Fi initiative is "not going to be a study to put on the shelf."