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Philadelphia Considers Free Citywide Wireless Access
The Associated Press is running an story about Philadelphia's city goverment seriously considering creating the world's largest hotspot.
"For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot....the city would likely offer the service either for free, or at costs far lower than the $35 to $60 a month charged by commercial providers"
That is quite brilliant and actually cheap. Think of it, the city could reduce costs in other areas such as, say water meter reading - instead of having guy go out with a scanner to each meter, it could transmit to the office when necessary. That alone would probably save a few million. Services could use spare bandwidth for other services such as easier deployment of traffic monitors, stoplight optimization, human control of high traffic stoplights during peak hours.
I know there is going to be many people that narrow mindedly say that the dollars could be spent on the poor or in some other avenue of no return. The city leaders have struck upon an idea that will actually revolve into a massive savings, data collection, data manipulation, data optimization threshold that will in turn benefit the entire population - it just wont be a direct "ME" benefit to everyone. I'm actually quite interested in seeing how this pans out.
Better tell the cops so they don't rough-up anyone with a laptop.
"I am not a number! I am a free man!"-- The Prisoner
What I'm thinking is, how will some health groups react? Adverse affects on health by wireless, especially in such large roll-out, are still not entirely proven harmless. No, I am not worried about health effects before all the flames come in, but there are some people/groups that tend to pay attention to this.
Philadelphia has been desperate to attract young profesionals to the city. This might work
"Phillidelphia City has been served a class action lawsuit by parents of the recent spurt of two-headed babies being born in the city. Scientists believe all the genetic anomolies are the result of the city's huge Wifi network and the microwave radiation it emits". ;-)
-psy
...security with something like this. Would you have to log in (even if it's free) so they can track you? I mean, if you go, open your laptop, get an IP and do evil things, how would they ever track your actions back to you? With your wired ISP account, there's at least SOME way to do that isn't there?
The only way you can improve technology is by getting the public sector involved in a defining leadership role. If you leave it to the corps, they'll keep you at the horse-and-buggy stage forever, just to keep robbing you blind.
Let's hope this signals a trend.
This is pretty thin on details but $10 million in infrastructure and $1.5/year to maintain seems awfully low for such a large coverage area. It's great that Philly has a mayor that is so technologically inclined. Perhaps when the conservatives start whining that there should be controls placed on the network to eliminate freedom of use (porn, etc) he might step in and kick it out?
I suppose that you get what you pay for when you are using a city-wide network (at ~$15) but shouldn't we be offering this without restriction on what you can visit?
At $10,000,000, that would be a nice contract to have.
What do you bet that someone with really good connections gets the contract?
Well it's not going to be free. Taxes will pay for it. Local I suspect, but depending on the Senators and Reps from PA, they might get some Federal monies for it, good old Pork as the people from states not getting the dough call it.
This could be a good thing. After all, pushing the technology envelope is great. Adding wireless sounds wonderful and geeky and technically enjoyable.
.02
What about the security aspects though?
And who will be in charge of the usage of the acounts, monitoring of traffic, etc. to make sure the l33t kids down on 14th street aren't trying to knock over the DOD or the Pentagon? Not to mention, keeping up all the wireless devices on security updates, and latest antivirus patterns to make sure it doesn't turn into a network of zombies that ensure a cyber terrorist attack?
just my
... once all necessary wire-tapping capabilities are installed, of course.
I work for the Philly government... and I haven't heard about this..
Actually, my department is going to be starting a pilot for the employees, now whether this will feed into the 'big one' or not stands to be seen.
The city's chief information officer, Dianah Neff, is quoted in the article:
[Emphasis added]
I have never seen a wirless dial up modem before, have you? I also hope they don't plan on using Blue Socket, out of personal experiences of a much smaller installation attempt.
On a side note, I don't think I want to sit on the front porch for too long in Philadelphia. That might be a big health risk! Shouldn't they fix those issues first, before they worry about being at the forfront of wirless access?
who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
Free broadband access means 70% of AMericans could watch video from any source at all. People could download video off of p2p networks, meaning that the high barrier to entry for getting a TV show or movie out to an audience would be changed to a lower barrier to entry. You would still have to have cameras (but they are getting reall cheap now) and actors and production sets. But the distribution system (tv stations, cable tv systems, movie theaters etc) has always been the obstacle to be overcome.
/i? sense: meaning that leftist ideas about raising the tax rates on the rich to former levels (e.g., 60% or more), and ideas about welfare for any poor person, and universal health care, these ideas are shunted aside.
But when anyone with a camera, free editing software, and some time and actors can make a movie, then upload it onto p2p, where it could be watched on free or very cheap p2p, that is going to mean that more leftist, liberal, progressive ideas are going to be propagated into American minds.
Right now, the mainstream media/Hollywood is liberal in the social sense (i.e., gay and minority rights, abortion, etc), but they are quite conservative in the economics
But free broadband would disrupt the media/entertainment distribution machine, thus allowing penetration for more liberal, leftist ideas.
I am all for it!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
no, but think about the labor needed to do that, and the technicians to solve all the problems, and then the tech support responsibilities for a city of 1.5 million people trying to connect to the wireless network...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Warning, hyperbole and stereotypes ahead!
So you are saying that none of the taxpayer's money should be spent on projects that actually benefit taxpayers? All of it should rightly go to crazy people that live in boxes and welfare leeches?
The chronically homeless and poverty stricken are generally the result of societal influences, and are not something that can be solved simply by throwing the city's budget at it.
I am sure there is a hefty portion of the budget already going towards various programs, but most of them are likely stopgap measures instead of education about birth control and financial planning, two of the largest (legal) hurdles faced by those below the poverty line.
It'll be interesting to see how Comcast reacts to this...comcast is a major precense in phildelphia (including its corporate headquarters)...they own 2 of the major sports teams (Flyers & 76ers), and they're one of the leading broadband providers in the area...this can't possibly make them happy...
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
After all, you don't exactly dial when you call someone on the phone nowadays, do you?
When was the last time you saw, let alone used, a rotary dial phone? Outside film and television, the last time I saw or used one must have been close to 15 years ago.
In fact, I bet if you gave anyone under the age of 20 such a phone and told them to dial 911 (999, 112, or whatever) then they wouldn't have a clue how to do it.
Dialling, per se, is obsolete. However the language is still with us, and likely will be for a very long time.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
If that's the case, I'm sure the Homeland Security Dept will enforce a cap of about 5bps ;)
Comcast will never let it happen. They have their corporate HQ here in Philadelphia, and are quite influential in the city. They will find a way to kill this initiative. Why am I so sure? Look at their past behavior:
They own some of the Philadelphia sports teams and refuse to sell the home game broadcast rights to satellite providers for any price-- so if you live in Philadelphia and want to see televised Flyers and Sixers home games you must have Comcast cable, period.
RCN tried to start offering cable TV, internet and phone service in Philadelphia a few years ago, and Comcast used their influence to throw up so many roadblocks, that RCN gave up and went away.
They do not, and will not, stand for something endangering their revenues on their home turf.
~Philly
> There are however a LOT of suburbs that are
> considered Philadelphia as well
No there aren't. The City of Philadelphia is very well defined. The "suburbs" (Delaware, Chester, Bucks, and Montgomery counties) obviously wouldn't be subject to this legislation because the City Council and John Street only have jurisdiction over the city itself. Now, whether they chose to apply it just to Center City is a different story, but there are no "suburbs that are considered Philadelphia." Either you live in the city or you don't, and if you don't, this doesn't apply to you.
Will this make it much easier for the government to monitor our email, VOIP, and IM? I think there are ISPs that only cooperate if there is a warrant to do so. What privacy will we have under this system if the city is more than happy to just cooperate with orgs like the FBI? Also, since this is a municipal service are we "virtually" give up our rights to privacy using it like walking out onto a public street?
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
Graduate 1: "Where should we take our Carnegie Mellon degrees and enjoy life as young prfessionals?"
Graduate 2: "San Francisco is nice. Lots of tech there. Great weather. Lots of tech in northern Virginia. Or maybe Austin?"
Graduate 1: "Philly! Let's be successful bachelors in Philly!"
Graduate 2: "Um, dude, Philly is dirty. Auto insurance rates are sky high. It's been voted as the fattest city in the country. Summers are hot and humid, winters are cold and crappy. Their sports teams can't ever seem to get to the big game. The people are a bit rude...they even throw snowballs at Santa Clause."
Graduate 1: "They have WiFi"
Graduate 2: "I'm there!"
The previous dialog has been provided as a reality check for bright-eyed and bushy-tailed graduates and professionals. WiFi will not increase the quality of life in a city and draw people to it.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang