It's unlikely the city of Pittsburgh will deploy a citywide wireless high-speed Internet network anytime soon, a report to be issued today concludes.

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A public-private committee charged with exploring the Wi-Fi issue and making recommendations on how the city can keep up with ever-changing communications technologies sees little hope for Pittsburgh following in Philadelphia's footsteps.

The state's largest city is setting up access to the wireless Internet -- commonly called Wi-Fi -- to reduce the need for high-speed cable or telephone connections and help market Philadelphia as a high-tech hot spot.

"To some extent, it's a difficult issue -- and people would argue, a moot issue," said Downtown attorney Alex Thomson, who chaired of the 25-person committee, called the Information and Communication Technologies Working Group. "The government of Pittsburgh doesn't have the funds to subsidize a Wi-Fi network."

Comprised of public officials, local telecommunications providers and nonprofit advocates, the committee was convened by city councilman and mayoral candidate William Peduto to assess the city's role in the rapidly changing telecommunications front.

The prospect of a Wi-Fi network was hotly debated during the group's monthly meetings and ultimately tabled once the group could not reach a consensus on what recommendation to make about the issue, committee members said.

On the topic of city-wide Wi-Fi, the report only states that Philadelphia's Wi-Fi network was discussed and that those talks did not result "in any consensus" by the working group.

Last fall, as state lawmakers debated a bill that would permit municipalities to offer free or low-cost wireless Internet service if local telephone companies would not, members of the working group mulled whether low-cost Wi-Fi to city residents was a good idea.

The disbanded conversation is a positive outcome for local telecom providers such as Verizon and Comcast, both of which held seats on the committee and were said to have lobbied against a local wireless initiative for fear they may lose high-speed Internet customers.

"The provision of broadband service is an expensive, risky and technologically difficult business," said committee member and Comcast spokesman Brian Jeter. " It is best left to the private sector."

Although the group came to no conclusion on whether the city should get into the high-speed Internet business, there was plenty of healthy debate, committee members said.

Wireless technology is still very new, and deciding whether the city and the residents would benefit from Pittsburgh acting as an Internet provider remained unresolved, said committee member Enrique Mu, director of the management information systems program at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz School of Business.

"The question was, 'Should the city be proactive in deploying technological infrastructure and wireless access?' We couldn't reach an agreement," he said.

Good publicity is an advantage to being a guinea pig and adopting the technology early, said Thomson, the committee chairman. But leaving the city to tackle kinks and bugs in a Wi-Fi network would be a drawback, he added.

The working group's report, which will be released in City Council chambers this afternoon, indicates the Pittsburgh is on par with comparable cities in the availability and cost of telephone, cable and Internet services.

The group did recommend, however, that the city government encourage greater competition among telecom providers by making businesses and consumers aware of the products and services that are available in the area.