Of course, many service providers want municipal WiFi to fail. But should wireless web access be free to all in the first place?
More than a month after St. Cloud launched what analysts say is the country’s first free citywide Wi-Fi network, Lusardi and others in this 28,000-person Orlando suburb are still paying to use their own Internet service providers as dead spots and weak signals keep some residents offline and force engineers to retool the free system.
St. Cloud officials are spending more than $2 million on a network they see as a pioneering model for freeing local families, schools and businesses from monthly Internet bills. It also promises to help the city reduce cell-phone bills and let paramedics in an ambulance talk by voice and video to hospital doctors.
The benefits are obvious, but is implementation too much for a municipal bureacracy? Maybe a joint venture would be better?
Several cities have Wi-Fi hotspots, but St. Cloud’s 15-square-mile network is the first to offer free access citywide, said Seattle-based technology writer Glenn Fleishman, who runs a Web site called Wi-Fi Networking News.
Other cities like Tempe, Ariz., have networks over a larger area (187 square miles), but access isn’t free. Planned projects in places like Chicago and Philadelphia would also dwarf St. Cloud’s network, but also require a fee for access.
Google Inc. and EarthLink Inc. are teaming up to build a $15 million Wi-Fi network across San Francisco, and their proposal is entering final negotiations. EarthLink’s faster offering would cost $20 per month, while Google would provide a slower, free service financed by advertising.
What do you think? Should datacomm be added to water, roads, waste, and security as municipal issues?
I personally think this is a matter for local government. If we leave it up to the free market, corporations will do everything they can to kill broadband.
The telcos don’t want competition from VoIP services and the cable companies don’t want competition from movies on demand services.
The telcos are already blocking users from using VoIP:
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1747343,00.html
If ISPs are allowed to block content to protect their private interests, the internet will stop being free. I see the freedom of the internet as being no different from the freedom to drive on roads.
Can you imagine if every road was owned by a corporation who could dictate who could drive on it?! There’d be chaos! Let’s not allow that to happen with the net!
Access to broadband should be treated the same way we completed the national electrical grids: regulate the metropolotian areas so price gouging isn’t (as) pervasive and the federal government funds rural area completion. We moan about China censorship but fail to understand offering dial up only ( and not too cheap ) is a form of depriving our own citizens of content.
Sure…..why shouldn’t city’s offer it as a public service. Look what they spend to draw people to their cities now….tax rebates, all kinds of little *free* goodies to get comapnies to relocate to their turf. This is the future, the smart cities will jump on it.
I’m staying in San Jose, the epi-center of the internet, and have never seen anyone off free WiFi around here.
I’m firmly in the “yes, cities should be doing municipal wireless” camp but for an alternative opinion you might check out Why the Internet’s not a utility by Johna Till Johnson.
Why not?
Municipalities are expected to offer certain services for the common good. While some may see the delivery of water, travel, and public safety as the right for commerce to profit, that does not exclude municipalities from collectively offering those services to its citizens. The ability to communicate is a right. As much a right as clean water, traveling, and public safety.
I am waiting to see what the conservatives offer as a counter argument.
Too bad these big business jerks are spending so much time and money fighting free internet providers in order to offer $20/mo for great broadband to a shrinking base of customers when RURAL AMERICA IS UNTAPPED. I am paying a satellite company $50/mo for 512k/128k (latency is free, of course). And satellite isn’t even available east of my house (no “beam”).
What I’d like to see are broadband “Co-Ops” like our local power company. Broadband over Power Lines could be a natural extension of the power utility. Many power companies already own ISP’s so it would be a short putt to becoming a broadband provider. This has potential as newer BPL products have solved the ham radio interference problem.
The ability to communicate is a right.
Yes, but if not having free broadband means your rights are violated, then the !st amendment has been meaningless for 210 years.
I’ve been a big supporter of
Face it, the game is already over.”Free” (tax paid) WiFi has been effectively stonewalled to death. Isn’t WiFi trailing-edge technology now? (I used to be big advocate of universal WiFi. BTW)
The other initiative I want is for the government to bring fiber optic into all American homes. (reasonable exceptions of course.)
I remember arguing back in 2001 that spending the tax surplus on universal fiber optic access would stimulate the economy far more than Bush’s tax rebates.
I still think I’m right about that.
The most important part of the question[s] is whether or not folks have a tiered offering. I believe it’s the easiest and simplest way to ensure it doesn’t operate at a loss.
There will always be folks willing to pay a bit more for faster speed, bigger pipes. That can pay for the free service for folks willing to accept that level, especially those just growing into the technology. It also guarantees access for all.
#6….Mr. E. Fusion…..what the hell does conservative/liberal have to do with free wifi????
This is kind of like one of those issues that regardless of your political beliefs or lack of any,you either are for or against, or even maybe without bringing some kind of political ideology into play.
Does everything thats posted on this site have to be liberal/conservative?? Geez dude…..lighten up.
Oh….and I know Liberals have a different copy of the constitution than we Conservatives, but I should point out that in mine…..travel, clean water are not mentioned as *rights*. Communication isn’t really a right either, you have the right to free speech and a free press, but free internet may not be under those rights. You might think internet, especially blogging and stuff is free speech, but it’s comparable to radio, you have the right to speak freely on the radio, but you don’t always have the right to do it without paying someone to allow the use of their broadcasting facilities.
There isn’t a city or town in this country that is enlightened enough to give you free WiFi at the cost of several million dollars of tax payer money unless they think the city will benefit from it in some way, usually in tax revenues from enhanced municiple facilities. Or if they think they can get more votes from those who would appreciate free WiFi than they will lose by using tax monies to give it free to the internet geeks.
I must have missed that right. I have been paying for water, gas and electricty all these years and now you tell me it is a right? I thaught I had a obligation to get a job so I could buy those things. Boy stupid me.
Simran:
How’s the water supply?
Pretty fine. It’s the power-cuts that piss people off. But most people have battery back-up anyway. Infact I’m on backup right now!