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Philadelphia Considering Municipal Wi-Fi
sebFlyte writes "The row over Muni Wi-Fi continues as cities and other municipal authorities consider building massive Wi-Fi networks to give lots of people low-cost wireless net access. CNET is running an article written by the CIO for the city of Philadelphia, explaining why she thinks it's time to break the telcos de-facto monopoly and for public agencies to start offering public services." We have previous covered Taipei's efforts along these lines to create a for-pay service
People winging about how poor the service is.
Talkshow hosts berating the government for more give-aways of taxpayer dollars (sponsored by some telco)
Saturation and further complaints (my taxdollars pay for, won't stand for it, etc)
Ultimately it'll actually be pretty good service.
Why is this a good idea anyway? Look at the stranglehold Cable TV has on communities. (oh, sure you can go satellite, but it's still not price competitive because they're pricing to compete with near monopolies) If municipalities insisted cable could be laid under the condition a cable company will sell, at a reasonable price, bandwidth on their cable to competitors, would we be paying such huge prices?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
This has been on slashdot months ago:5 8.shtml?tid=193&tid=4
http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/04/09/25/2202
with a reference to the original statement from Philadelphia
http://www.phila.gov/wireless/briefing.html
--
from-the-sort-out-the-duplicates dept.
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The requested URL (articles/05/02/11/1458211.shtml?tid=193&tid=1) was not found.
If you feel like it, mail the url, and where ya came from to pater@slashdot.org.
I thought that PA made a law banning that?
Public networks to fileshare on!
Dashboard Widgets
would do something like that.
Starting the late 90's they were being very public about pushing to the front of being "wired"... even got a Yahoo! "Most wired city" award for 2000. That was all on an effort to get the city ringed with fiber. I guess once they got their high-speed net to all the city buildings and schools, their interest pretty much fizzled, leaving the city-zens still not quite on of the game... I still can't get DSL.
The Philadelphia Gas Works has the POOREST customer service of any organization I know. They continue to raise rates on those who pay while millions goes uncollected. Everything philly touches turns to shit. This will be know different. If they dropped the rediculous wage tax rates, techies might want to live here, rather than hit the burbs or some other region. Philly is a GREAT town, but it's government sucks ass.
I would prefer them to fix all of the potholes first...
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
I am OK with municipal utilities, I think it is inappropriate to make it free. If there is a need among the low-income, offer discounts or make it free for them on a need basis. Having your users pay by default would more likely pay for the setup.
I am no fan of the DSL / cable duopoly, but not giving them or other commercial interests a chance would be a disservice to tax payers due to the potential for waste and stifles competition from viable alternatives.
If they choose to use a technology more suited for a WAN deployment, like the unproven WiMax, this is more of a political move than anything else. The government is trying to look like it is hip with technology and attract the tech-savvy crowd. However, such a deployment is not good for competition, as governments receive special tax-exempt status and would either take many companies out of the market completely, or lend a huge advantage who whomever the government contracts. And what happens when the technology / project goes belly up? In the normal market, companies go bankrupt. The government, however, will just throw (and waste) more money at it.
While I like the idea in general I don't think Philly should doing this. The city has been so broke these last few years that they're closing firehouses and talking of cutting the police force. Once the city gets its budget in order then they might want to look into this. Not before.
- Apple Computer......proudly going out of business for over twenty years.
It seems that the comparatively extravagant cost of free WiFi versus the number of people who can't even even afford a computer in Philadelphia puts into question why this should be a primary initiative. I agree with the goals in principle but wouldn't those tax dollars do a lot towards helping city schooling? Just a thought.
The ramifications of free wi-fi are greater than just web access... The upshot is of course, free telephone service as well.
This IMHO is where the real problems are going to begin. The telco's aren't just going to lose their internet business over this, they'd lose their businesses.
Not that we'd be sorry to see them go, but it should be acknowleged that we're talking about more than web browsing here.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Philadelphia's move does nothing to telco monopolies. The legislation that allowed the Philly project to go forward also gives Verizon the right to veto any other city in Pennsylvania from doing the same thing.
PA in general has some of the worst roads in the Nation...
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
I hope this gets deployed before Mayor Street gets indicted and sentenced.
I guess this is a "stunt" to try to lure people to Philly and fight the flight-rate that increases every year (especially among 20somethings), to the point where Phoenix is bigger than us. I guess no one considered that having to pay a local wage tax of over 4% has something to do with why people leave...
Take away the tax and give me a 4% wage increase and I can setup my own private Wi-Fi with plenty of loot to burn!
CNET is running an article written by the CIO for the city of Philadelphia, explaining why she thinks it's time to break the telcos de-facto monopoly and for public agencies to start offering public services.
City-wide wi-fi is actually more of a monopoly than any telco offering.
In the present situation, the worst case is: if you want internet access, your only option is to pay Company X whatever it asks.
But in the proposed situation, you have even less choice! All taxpayers are forced to pay the government for internet access, whether you use it or not.
I'm not saying municipal wi-fi is a bad idea. But the monopoly angle really won't cut it with me.
Bekause uz Amerikans kan't spell proprly, and kan't evn lowkate philli on a map.
And whut the hell does 'de-facto' mean anyways?
Go back to Englishand you fukin limey Baztards! Enjoy yer Freedom Fries! You suck, and we pulled yer asses outta da fire sixty-five years ago, you cheeze eating surrender monkeys! And anything else from the Simpsons that fits in here!!! You and your presiden Suck! Take that Chairak!
Competition is what is supposed to drive the prices down. If the prices are high, that no only indicates that the providers are looking for return of their investments into the infrastructure but it also indicates that there is not enough public demand for the technology itself. If the broad public would demand a cheaper service and actually use it, I am pretty sure it would exist. In Germany, wireless networks became a hype too, but in reality they are not used nearly as much as the providers expected.
Also, our laws prohibit the public administration to enter markets where already enough private companies compete against each other. After all, the government is not supposed to use tax money to drive private competition out of the market. Tax money may be used to install wireless where private companies see no chance for revenue. On the other hand that would lead to the question of whether there's enough demand at that certain location anyway.
Additionally, the authorities would face huge network administration duties that normal providers face.
Last but not least, you could argue that there are privacy concerns if the public offices run a city-wide wireless network (big brother is watching you surf).
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Is there any proof of this? Never in the history of the United States has the government done anything "low cost". Compare the true cost of shipping a package FedEx versus USPS.
It might cost less for the few hundred thousand subscribers who pay for it, but don't forget all the money taken from the people who don't use it, but who still get to pay for it.
A government granted telco monopoly is a bad thing, but a government run monopoly (amtrak, usps, etc) is worse.
And just imagine how great that customer service will be. It might reach DMV levels of greatness!
And I suppose we can trust the government to provide our network access and not snoop in on us.
Of course, if it does cost too much, has poor service, or impedes on your privacy, you can always switch to the competition...oh wait, they ran the competition under, because "for profit" has become evil.
The city itself shouldn't be talking about forming a monopoly, supporting a monopoly or operating a utility. Instead the city should be doing what it needs to do to facilitate the creation of city-wide mesh networks by private providers.
There are several impediments to the creation of city-wide wireless mesh networks. The first, and perhaps most important, is right of way. The second is cost.
A good model would include the city throwing out an RFP asking for proposals to create a city-wide mesh network that accomplishes the following:
- Covers at least X% of the city, where X is a large enough percentage to ensure that poor areas of the city are at least partially covered in mesh.
- Provides at least X mbps throughput to all users
- Allows independent providers to use the network to provide their own brand of wireless mesh services, for appropriate fees
In exchange, providers get:- The right to borrow money at favorable rates through the use of the city's credit. The city floats bonds, and then loans the money to the chosen provider(s) at the same interest rate as the bonds themselves
- Streamlined approval of right of way throughout the city, probably using the city's lamposts
- A temporary monopoly on some types of premium services on the network (i.e. the provider is forced to allow the rebranding of the regular tier of service, but a higher tier of service [twice as fast?] is the sole province of the provider for X years).
New York City has an interesting plan out there for better cell phone coverage under a similar model: offering right of way on the city's lamposts in exchange for certain guarantees. See New York Times coverage on the subject.True. Anybody know if they're -telling- you about the tax hikes which will probably go into effect to hire more SAs, net admins, techs, etc., just for the city gov.?
Linkage
nothing the government gives you is free Only if you actually pay your taxes! In other words, it is free if you earn your living from gambling, prostitution, drugs, or welfare...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Aside from the philosophical discussion on whether this SHOULD be done, I see two implimentation problems:
1) This is going to cause major interference with pre-existing wi-fi networks. I don't use of want my private network degraded by the ever-present WIFI service set up with repeaters throughout the city.
2) It's going to be VERY difficult to get people to be smart about use, and avoid giving out key personal information over the airwaves. Identity theieves already collects lots of information in Starbucks and ball fields. Can you imagine how bad the problem would be with access city-wide?
Anyone who has lived or visited the Philly area in an automobile will easily understand this statement. Sometimes there are simple, yet vastly under-supported, issues in urban areas that get overlooked by groups that are so quick to spend it on more frivolous things. Philly's roads are really quite bad and need attention far moreso than the city needing a WiFi network.
This story could almost go into the politics section. Ms. Neff is complaining about the incumbent carriers and their slow, impartial approach to providing universal access. It may very well be that the incumbent carriers aren't handling things the way they should, but that doesn't mean the alternative is any better.
Options:
1) Competitors move in to provide different/better service: prices fall slightly and the poor still don't have access.
2) The city takes charge: prices rise (inevitable with government-owned enterprises in a position of monopoly), and capacity becomes a big problem as the city struggles to build their own infrastructure or share with the ILECs. Everybody pays based on income/per-person/whatever. The poor get their mediocre service, and everybody else pays extra on top of the municipal cost because they want better (alternative) service than what the city provides. It boils down to the middle class paying for internet access for the poor. I've seen it happen... wireless doesn't mean necessarily mean high-speed, it's just a different way to hook up.
Several observations: 1. this will not put verizon out of buisness. Philly still needs to buy the bandwith from an isp(ultimatly verizon). 2. If they charge money, some home users will still want high speed(i.e comcast). 3. Buisnesses will still need real bandwidth and QOS. 4. people will take the municipal signal and share it in their home with their linksys WiFi routers and people like me will still pick it up for free from their neighbors. 5. If philly's government does it it will suck. 6. maybe the DRPA will pay for it and it won't be paid for by tax $$ but where funding for a project like should be coming from ... bridge tolls.
my 2 cents.
(PS if they do it at all it should be free)
2 more cents
And what about all these up and coming standards like 'n'? With 'n', you'd have far less deployments to worry about (increased distance), and improved bandwidth. Investment in old tech is what you get when you let Gov't handle (botch) something like this.
By the time it gets through 800 committees, the original idea is so watered down you begin to wonder why it was proposed in the first place. I think this would be a better job for the private sector with gov't investment and incentive.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
I post the same reply nearly every time it comes up. The local governments have no business getting into providing internet service let alone WIRELESS internet service.
I read what he had to say and I call BULLSHIT. It is the same politically correct crap they use all the time to slip more government programs. The routine is to use words like underserved, monopoly, and eventually "redlining". They claim that cable companies, telcos, and similar don't provide service to those who cannot afford it or will even use it yet at the same time they claim there is a need!
This is a vote buying scheme with little difference from how senior centers, libraries, and even police precincts are placed.
Here is what will happen. The contracts will be awarded to those companies who can show they adhere to some contrived quota system of workers. Being in philly this might require union workers, specific health benefits, living wage, or even political affliation. These types of companies are usually nothing more that shells held by friends of the mayor or similar placed people (see Atlanta airport for examples of a big city nepotism).
The contract gets awarded. It delivers inferior service requiring even more consultation by people who just happen to be friends of the same people who authorized it or screwed it up.
So eventually it mostly works. We then find out that most of the target people don't have the equipment to use it. So we buy it for them, to include pc and router from "approved companies". We then have to provide training for those who "did not win lifes lottery" of course by those who meet the nepotism requirements.
Then we stuff the administration of the whole shebang by favorites and such.
So we will end up with an overpriced solution that is staffed by people who have no business touching a net. We will pay to stuff pcs and equipment in homes where the people really won't get the true benefit.
I'd rather let a corporation do it, at least they can be held truly accountable. The government will just make your life miserable if you complain or such.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I think its a great idea. Its great for the center city types who trade stocks in Love park. Or the north city types who are poor and want to look up lines on wagerline.com. great for everyone.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
this has been floating around philly for at least a year now. the last thing we need is for some crap isp to run things. i'd rather pay a tax and have the government run it than be ripped off by some crappy isp (ahem comcast cough cough).
a: wrong-doing
b: hilarious wrong-doing
is very high unless this is done right. Philadelphia could have some trouble on its hands if it doesn't go about this in a very careful manner. Free-internet is good and all but maybe this is one of those situations where the bad could outweigh the good...
He lost my vote.
Local Goverment decides on big-ticket infrastructure spend in market already (relatively) well served by existing commercial vendors.
I don't get it. Do we seriously think that an internet connection is something the state should provide to every home ? Is it more important than a phone line ? Water ? Gas ? Electricity ? And all the other things supplied by the commercial sector.
I'm glad I'm not in Philly, there is one goverment official there with WAY too much budget.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Clearly private industry can't step up to the challenge; in the face of a challenge that private industry doesn't want, government must step in!
Say what? Tons of money is being invested in wireless hotspots, zillions already exist, and it's not the government's job to provide wireless? Oh. Nevermind.
I see two sides of this. First, one problem I have with governments period now and even other organizations is that they continually try to push people to the web. When it snows, the local radio stations do not even read the closings on air anymore unless it's a brand new one. Then they only call it once. This is a problem. EVERYBODY frickin assumes oh just look it up on the web. Well, what if we don't HAVE or WANT a computer? I have computers and it's not a problem for me but others depend on the normal media channels for getting pertinent information about things like closings and the weather alerts. It takes 5 minutes to read them off. If you cover a larger area, then say we will read off for the metro area and go to our sister station in timbuktu to here your area. The point is a radio can be had for LESS then a dollar if you get a cheap one. A computer costs alot less. TV's cost less then a computer as well. At least the TV stations run a crawl. The radio is how we used to find out if we had a snow day when we were kids, It's still a very accessible form of media and it should not be abandoned jsut becauses it's easy fo ryou to remind people to check the web.
That was not even the government, but here's another example....the IRS....
It's well known the US government MUCH prefers electronic returns to paper ones. So much so taht you actually get your money earlier and without having to get a RAL. Yet there are STILL a significant amoun t of people who don't have and don't want computers. It's even been mention in some circles that the IRS should not accept or process paper tax returns. Again, this is a problem.
I frankly think free wifi isn't going to get low income folks anything if they can't get a computer anyway. If the government wants to put all this stuff on the web and have our interaction with them be always on the internet, then they must provide more then just free wifi....free computers. I don't see that happening. Until computers are so intrenched into society that even the lowest income can afford one, then we must still have the old avenues open.
I see this is a good idea, but I frankly would nto want my tax dollars spent on a section of society who can't even afford the device they need to use it anyway. It's almost like putting a free wifi network in a 3rd world country where they don't even have phones. Why waste our tax dollars on something that won't be used.
One other way I think is bad when they governments start going this way is the government could then censor and CONTROL what we see. This one reason is another reason I don't see free muni wifi working. We don't like the government SPYING on us.
Gorkman
I live in Philadelphia. From the front of my house, I can see 5-8 networks (about half of which are unsecured, but that's another story). From the back of my house, another 5 or so. I'm already having too much trouble trying to find the least-interference-prone channel of 12, of which only 1, 6, and 11 don't overlap with the others. If Philly deploys a city-wide mesh, private networks will have only 2 non-overlapping channels to swim in.
The only "rows" in Philadelphia are the rowhouses.
Yeah, "row" isn't an appropriate term to use in this case, given that disagreements in Philly are usually settled with gunfire.
Muni-WiFi cannot work if they stick to current 802.11 technologies. WiFi was built for very small LAN deployments. As there are only 11 channels for 802.11, interference is going to pose a big problem with home users' own WiFi networks, as well as technologies that run in the 2.4 GHz band of the spectrum.
If they choose to use a technology more suited for a WAN deployment, like the unproven WiMax, this is more of a political move than anything else. The government is trying to look like it is hip with technology and attract the tech-savvy crowd. However, such a deployment is not good for competition, as governments receive special tax-exempt status and would either take many companies out of the market completely, or lend a huge advantage who whomever the government contracts. And what happens when the technology / project goes belly up? In the normal market, companies go bankrupt. The government, however, will just throw (and waste) more money at it.
'Troll' my ass. It's a perfectly valid point.
The last time I checked I could also get Internet access from my cable TV company, independent dial-up providers, independent wireless providers. In fact, in my town of 26,000 we have approximately 10 ISPs that are not telephone companies.
Makes me wonder what the hell they're doing in Philly if my little town in Iowa has all of these options available and all of the companies are making profits.
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
How is bringing up two legitimate concerns (especially a SECURITY CONCERN) a troll?
Philadelphia hasn't exactly given out any detailed specifications that have allievate these concerns, let alone made any promises that these issues would resolved (if they keep their promises)
I'm as anti-defacto-telco-monopoly as anybody else here, but shouldn't ANY proposed alternative to the defacto-telco-monopolies be vetted first with legitimate concerns?
Have you ever even been in Philidelphia? The roads are crap, and there are husks of broken down cars all over the place. Lots of vagrants too.
Believe it or not, some cities have bigger, more pressing issues than a lack of free *COUGH* subsidized wireless Internet.
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
... has passed a Law banning State and Federal Government from "competing" with private businesses in Telecom, Music and Movies. The measure is pending in Senate...The Administration spokesman said "Businesss are unable to compete and provide better, cheaper alternatives to those services. We welcome this move which makes the playing field equal for all corporate players and this in the best interest of all consumers [sic] concerned."
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
In other words, it is free if you earn your living from gambling, prostitution, drugs, or welfare...
That covers about 90% of the population in Philadelphia.
This is the US. We have fights.
..an awful lot of cities have already been doing it for a long time.
Including my town, which has had free WiFi covering a large portion of the city for over a year. I and I know for a fact that we aren't the only city doing this, plenty of others in the US already have simmilar setups.
If your home WAP had been using the same channel as the city, tough cookes. Change your channel. Is it really that freaking difficult? Took me less than 30 seconds on my linksys.
Why not let the telco's run it, but allow the city to pay for a minimum level of service that's available to everyone? If a person wants more features, speed, whatever, then they can pay to upgrade. This can be something that's an 3-4 year contract and can be put up for competitive bid near the end of each contract. I certainly wouldn't want my city trying to run a wireless network because whatever they do touch ends up being screwed up.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
"...the CIO for the city of Philadelphia, explaining why she thinks it's time to break the telcos de-facto monopoly and for public agencies to start offering public services."
...then why has the City so hardily endorsed th running of public schools by private companies. Which, coincidentally, has apparently been successful.
Give me a break. Do we really think Telcos are worried about 802.11 MANs? WI-FI networks work marginal at best on a MAN scale. 802.11 was never intended to deliver the services end users will demand.
Gimme that booze you little pumpkin pie hair cutted freak!
It's hard to imagine how the city of Philadelphia would consider such project. Perhaps in Silicon Valley, but Philadelphia? It's inconceivable that this city can make political gains with this service. I smell (though can't prove it), that there are some form of quickbacks to the politicians from some equipment suppliers.
i have a choice regarding WiFi expenditures
'the people' have no business making that decision for me
fucking socialists!
those 'poorly run businesses supported by government' are usually taking advantage of some rotten government program the original poster was referring to. Businesses go under every day because of poor management, bad decisions, or a host of other reaons. Governments usually do not step in and give them cash in order to keep operating. put down the crack pipe.
Another notch in the belt for thoes of us who beleve that internet access is a public right. One of the most inportant things to take into consideration in the future is to biuld a network that by using open firmware upgradable hardware to reduce the cost of supporting new and faster protocols like WI-MAX and whatever is coming next. This would allow for the network to meet the demands of incresing bandwith usage and reliability concerns for years to come. There is nothing like installing a multimillion dollar 802.11.b network only to find that it can't keep up with the usage demands. Another idea is in order to keep things free to require people to donate a few extra cpu cycles to the government in return by using java based distributed computing.
411 Y0UR 8453 4R3 8310NG 70 U5!! -NSA
Even I, generally libertarian-leaning, see something to be said for municipal fiber networks, given the incredible costs and externalities (stopping traffic) of trenching and covering an entire municipality. The truth is that if the muni doesn't do it, they will often give a monopoly franchise to a private corp to do it anyway. Plus trenching fiber involves getting all kinds of government permits for rights-of-way, etc.
Muni wireless is another issue. I'm not so sure that government should go in and create their own wireless monopoly, especially using unlicensed airwaves...it is clear from the cellular experience that multiple private wireless networks can easilly overbuild complete coverage for cities. No so clear you can do the same with fiber.
If the prices are high, that no only indicates that the providers are looking for return of their investments into the infrastructure but it also indicates that there is not enough public demand for the technology itself.
----
can you explain the costs of dsl then? I am still getting charged 39.95 a month after 6 years. I am positively sure that my DSLAM port is fully capitalized...
Same with phone companies in the past. Why do you think they were split, and ATT forced to allow homeowners to buy their own phones?
Big business will screw the little guy as long as the regulators allow it.
Period.
l8,
AC
the mayor of Memphis is under FBI investigation also. probably for similar corruption charges.
I have to admit that reality is far more complex than I stated.
,there is a maximum price the customer is willing to pay for a certain service.
What you describe about low demand and low prices only applies to a company entering a market with good financial backing. Even that company will have to face the fact that if you raise prices
Besides, if there is demand, it attracts competitors. If their analysis of the business situation indicates that they can offer the service at a lower price and still earn a profit, they might decide to enter the market. Contracts are then used to bind customers. After the company has a large enough customer base, they could raise prices, but that might also drive customers away. As prices climb, competitors can enter the market to skim customers from established competitors by underbidding their prices.
There is a certain equilibrium. In the end, the price will balance itself out according to the demand and what the custom believes a service is really worth.
Although there's a huge demand for internet services in Germany, the prices are still low compared to other countries because companies are still trying to enlarge their customer base. Another reason being that they are trying to offer other/related services to that customer base. We have regulatory authorities for telecommunications markets which had to intervene several times to keep the companies with the biggest market shares to use agressive price dumping to drive competitors out of the market.
I have never studied business science though, so maybe I'm wrong after all.
If you want to supply free internet access for all, then you should at the same time provide some sort of computer access. If I were a low income family living paycheck to paycheck and I read about this initiative, I would be irate. For some, spending $100 is the difference between eating for a week or going hungry. If I were in this category, and I saw that my tax dollars were subsidizing a program like this, I would be more than upset. Perhaps if you charged each person who wishes to use this service a few dollars each month, it could pay for itself through that. Otherwise, this is an issue of stealing from the poor to give to the rich by providing for those with money and access but charging all for the service.
The service will probably be contracted to a friend, it will probably suck, and there won't be much that can be done about it since the service contract will be valid for several years. As far as I'm concerned, there are very few real winners with respect to private-public partnerships- the few that get the lion's share of the money.
Something else to consider...it's damn funny to hear government entities talking about the stranglehold certain companies have (which is unfortunately true), but this same stranglehold provides the government a very convenient way to increase taxes- by conjuring up a new name for it, and calling it a "fee". I looked at my electricity bill today - it has about 7 different "fees" associated with it - one of them is 10% of the total.
I'm already wary of the monopolists. I'd be even more wary of a government-run monopoly.
I see the classic fake libertarian mindset at work. Are you willing to subject your roads, sewers, electricity, phones, etc. to this 'don't take anything from me' attitude? I don't know your background but I'm willing to bet you make a living at whatever you do thanks to the public infrastructure that surrounds you. Public = society = people, us, you and me.
Access to information is coming to be a vital service, and should not be denied to anyone, even the poor. When the internet becomes the primary means of communication with your local government, it is a utility, not a luxury.
We aren't there yet, but the day is coming when digital communications replace the telephone as the preferred communication mechanism.
The infrastructure necessary to schedule an appointment with the water department, pay your taxes, download forms, etc. should not be left to profiteers.
The problem with Philadelphia is that there is no competition. Comcast strong-armed the local politicians to keep RCN cable out of the city completely, so you have no competition in cable prices. Instead of Philadelphia offering wireless access, the city should be forcing Comcast and Verizon to lower their prices if they want to keep their monopolies.
has been conisering the merits of letting a 3rd party put up paid wireless for about 5 years. And they still can't decide if it's a good idea.
T.J. Schmitz - the man, the myth, the legend - o
You might want to tape your W2 to your monitor.
On the surface, I like the idea of free wifi. Who doesn't want free service? I like that the government is building an infrastructure. However, I believe that the service itself should be privatized, keeping sure to maintain a competitive environment with several providers. Otherwise, the lowest bidder is awarded a fat contract, with minimal incentive to provide improved service, and the incredible inertia that is government contracting will insure that poor service never gets fixed.
The CIO for the city of Philadelphia was at a meeting for Philadelphia Cares that I was also in attendance at. This was a technology summit on how to bridge the technology divide.
At one point in the meeting I suggested that a grassroots effort to creat neighborhood mesh networks could be of great benefit to connecting hte neighborhoods both internally and externally. CIO asked a few questions but didn't seem to want to work with the community on it.
I see where this is going now. Mayor Street's office gets a hold of a great idea that would cost the city very little to implement, but then turns it around to line the pockets of his inner circle. His brother Milton is already busy with a lucrative city contract so maybe it will be someone else in the mayor's family.
But don't take my word for it. Check for yourself.
I would tend to agree with you
Is how people keep saying "oooo, Free Internet!"
Listen. NOTHING IS FREE. The money to build the infrastructure has to come from SOMEWHERE. That somewhere is taxpayers' pockets. The monthly ISP fees will also be paid for our of taxpayers' pockets
Citizens of Philadelphia, listen to me and listen to me good. It will be cheaper for you in the long run to OPPOSE this with every ounce of strength you have and instead just go out and buy a computer and cheap DSL or Cable. If you allow the city gov't to do this, all you'll accomplish is paying the same thing for the computer and service, plus an additional premium for the privelege of having Mayor Street's cronies build and maintain the network for you. DSL you buy from Verizon comes with support, as does cable service. You do not need a corrupt city government doing it for you.
Wise up and don't fall for this scam.
Yet another crazy government idea.
Governments are known to be inefficient and I think that money is badly needed for social programs and whatnot.
If they already want to compete with private enterprises (as this is essentially a service that could be provided by some existing or new private enterprise), they should use some innovative ways.
For example, they could donate WLAN access points to selected households which then can create a big free P2P mesh. Power bill (and "AP management" where applicable) could be paid via tax deductions.
Management: they could employ a small number of people to service WLAN in their 'hoods (configure, fix, reboot, monitor via MRTG, etc.).
They should create and not just spend, goddamn wasters.
"Also, our laws prohibit the public administration to enter markets where already enough private companies compete against each other."
I'm curious. Even if it is illegal for the public administration to do this, would it be illegal for a non-governmental group to do it? Say some billionaire philanthropist decides that it's in the best interest of the community to have free WiFi. Would the telco's and private companies have any legal case against him for providing a service for free that they were trying to sell?
Also, the city could make the case that it is necessary to do this to provide equal access to education. The internet is now the primary source of information for any research.
If you look at the statements made by the Philly CIO you can see that there are a huge number of misunderstandings about WiFi technology. To name a few: WiFi is not a self-healing mesh technology. The proposed WiFi mesh technologies are not even close to being a standard. The number of proposed WiFi units to cover the city is not even in the ballpark of reality.
If you want to waste a lot of money without any results let the government run the program.
Conservative groups have no power in Philadelphia.
This quote from Kofi Annan seem's relevant - "People lack many things: jobs, shelter, food, Health care and drinkable water. Today, being cut off from basic telecommunications services is a hardship almost as acute as these other deprivations, and may indeed reduce the chances of finding remedies to them."
I pinched the quote off http://www.bristolwireless.net/.
Liam.
"It isn't free you dolts, nothing the government gives you is free, you pay for it all. "
Yes, not conventionally free, but free in the sense that if they're going to waste the money somewhere anyway, you might as well benefit from it.
You can argue seven ways to sunday that the money would go to school books or needy families or repaving the street in front of your house. The cost of implimenting this will probably be a little steep, but I really don't see them slashing important programs to make money for this.
The government is going to waste the majority of your tax money anyway, at least this way you can hope to actually get some personal benefit out of your cash.
This is rediculous. Monopolies exist because of government interference in the free market. Then government steps in to compete against the monopolies at the taxpayers expense?
Personally I'd say that providing this sort of infrastructure is exactly the sort of things governments/regional authorities/public bodies should get involved in.
Once a good communication channel is in place then people can compete to create and run the value added services that run on top of the infrastructure. That way everyone competes on quality of product and nobody gets stuffed because monopoly X controls the channels of distribution and uses this to spike its competitors products.
Seperating the network provider from the service provider is a good thing.
And lets face it. The ability to communicate effectively and distribute things efficiently is what makes our industrialised world what it is today. Without it our species would, for the most part, all still be living in isolated communities burnng witches and believing the world was flat etc. etc.
And anyway, if the majority of voters in a state/district/country vote for a candidate that says they're going to put up a public wifi network that's their choice. If the telcos don;t like it they can put up their own candidate to contest the election.
Oh wait this is about America... The telcos will just buy a pet congresscritter to pass some laws forbidding it.
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
DSL may be an established technology. That does not mean that providers have extended their coverage area to every part of the country. Apart from that, investments in infrastructure continue as technology advances. You can get 5 MBit DSL here now, which was technically impossible 6 years ago when you got DSL. Besides, I would bet that you paid more for DSL 6 years ago or had less bandwidth than you do now. The service has become cheaper. I am not saying that it has reached a reasonable price but providers have to pay IP carriers, too, and of course they want to make a profit, too. Other providers are just resellers of a competitors technology and therefore cannot underbid his prices significantly. I still think that I am paying too much for DSL, too, but things used to be a LOT more expensive some time ago.
I am probably wrong though in comparing my country's situation to other country's markets which have different laws and regulatory policies...
free access to textual information, video/audio entertainment, etc.?
next thing you know municipalities all over the country will start filling buildings with books, videos and music so people can share these resources. awww, man.
fear is the mind killer
...are quasi-public goods which cannot be practically supplied by the private sector because they do not return a direct or quantifiable profit. That is why government supplies those. Arguing that it is equitable for government to step in, and onto the turf already established by the private sector is ludicrous. It's also anti-democratic, and counter productive. This entitlement-driven attitude that says government should provide something on some tenuous notion that it'll 'help the economy' does nothing more than empower government to be the very tyrannical monopoly that you would accuse the commercial providers of being. At least when a private enterprise turns monopolistic, you have a choice to turn away from them. But when government establishes a monopoly backed by the force of law, you have absolutely no recourse. You're perhaps not old enough to remember the sorry state of cable, television, phone, and electric utilities when governments established competition free zones for them.
You know, the early history of public access wifi is a nice story of individuals who culled thier resources and the resources of people in their community on a voluntary basis to provide something that helped people. This would be a very ugly turn for the worse, particularly since it is well within the resources of even very small organizations to establish public wifi mesh networks.
I wish comment moderation wasn't affected by the fact that I contributed to the thread 800 posts away.
"Also, the city could make the case that it is necessary to do this to provide equal access to education."
Providing large scale wireless internet access for a city would not be a proper action to provide equal access to education. Public libraries usually offer free internet access. Besides just offering the service would not mean that everyone had the hardware to use it.
As far as giving away service for free is concerned, I used a free service in a small U.S. town which was offered by local shop owners based on DSL. They actually got together and offered the service to attract more customers. Free of charge and no purchase necessary.
and then it WILL be free for most people....like you and me!
eat shiat and bark at the moon
instead of the government running it along with the bureaucracy that it will come with why don't the provide a tax incentive program to any companies that will provide this service to atleast a certain percentage of their citizens or atleast bid the job out to private companies so that there will be competition cuz in the end competition is what defines free enterprise the more the government starts providing the closer we come to communism
Political purpose and government should/should-not aside, what kind of WiFi gear and stragegies would be used to accomplish a city-wide public network?
Seems like a pretty duanting task. All those access points and the volume of devices connecting... Anyone know of any online resources for researching the logistics of setting up large public wireless networks?
S-