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Oakland County to go Wireless
y00nix writes "Oakland County, MI has plans to roll out a wireless Internet access program dubbed "Wireless Oakland" covering all 910 square miles inside the county. County Executive L. Brooks Patterson unveiled the plans at last night's State of the County address. Additional press coverage via the Oakland Press, and the The Detroit News." Similar in concept to Philadelphia's plans covered yesterday.
(from a related link on the article)
Q: If I leave Oakland County, will my computer work?
A: Of course. But you might have to revert back to a wired connection, at least until the whole nation goes wireless.
...and while I really, really like the sound of this, I'm more interested in seeing what sort of impact this'll have on cable and DSL prices in the area. It seems to me that Comcast, SBC and Wide Open West will have a much more difficult time convincing people to pay $60/month for broadband access when they can get adequate service without wires or hardware for free.
I don't think this sort of WiFi would have the speed to keep me happy, but I definitely think my parents and most of my family would be perfectly happy with it, and I certainly wouldn't mind seeing it drive my cable bill down $10 or $20/month.
I'm just thankful that municipal water systems were put in before the advent of the bottled water industry. Otherwise it never could have happened, and we'd all be showering and washing our clothes in Dasani...