City Of Houston To Offer Free Email To Residents

Don Symes writes: "The City of Houston is getting ready to roll out 'free' email and web-hosted word processing. First to libraries and fire stations(!?), poorer areas, then to those who can afford ISPs." It would be interesting to compare the cost of Internet Access Technologies' multi-million dollar contract with private ISP access, especially for the dozen other cities considering similar deals.

Comments

This will not help the poorest.

[Rimbo]

I noticed a small bit when RTFA:

"People who verify their residence will get a SimDesk account number to access the software, including word processing, and e-mail."

What precisely does "verify your residence" mean? My guess is that it means you will have to have a house, or an apartment, or some other solid place to live. People who are living out of a cardboard box need not apply. So although this is lowing the bar, certain people will still be denied access.

Despite that, this is a dramatic step in the right direction. Although some say that only a thousand access points is too few, remember that the majority of Houstonians won't be using the public terminals -- they have their own connections -- and they probably don't even go into the neighborhoods where these will be installed.

Anyhow, if people who can't afford the 'net are lined up to use these, that's a good sign to me. What I'd be most afraid of is that these people would simply have no interest in using them, either due to ignorance or because a particular library terminal is part of a gang's turf.