Free Wi-Fi Threatened?

jasonmicron writes "The Houston Chronicle is reporting that if certain state officials have their way, cities in the state of Texas will no longer be able to offer free WiFi to their citizens. This could set a dangerous precedent if passed, as broadband providers could start lobbying officials in the other 49 states to ban free WiFi as well. According to the article, Pennsylvania has already fallen victim to such a law but it excluded Philedelphia due to the city's 'existing efforts.'"

Comments

'Free' Wifi?

[Will_Malverson]

Keep in mind, that unless the city employees who administer the network do so for free, Linksys, Cisco, or whoever provides the hardware does so for free, and the upstream provider doesn't charge for bandwidth, this isn't "free" Wi-Fi, but instead subsidized, socialized Wi-Fi.

According to http://www.wifimaps.com/, there is only one wireless network within half a mile of my house, despite the fact that hundreds of people live in that area.

Why should the vast majority of the population subsidize the small percentage of people who are interested in this stuff? It's not like Internet connectivity is *that* expensive.

Besides, do you really want to get your Internet connectivity from your local government?

Texans: Write your legislator!

[tgtanman]

http://www.savemuniwireless.org/ has information on how to contact your Texas legislator and more information on HB 789

Illinois Senate bill 0499

[Fencepost]

Illinois Senate bill 0499 was introduced in late February with an amendment by State Senator Rauschenberger that would do similar things.

I sent letters to my state senator and representative encouraging them to vote against it when and if the opportunity came up, and I fully encourage any other Illinois residents to do the same. If you're not sure who your state senator and representative are, you can find out at Project Vote Smart by entering your 9-digit ZIP code. If your state senator is on the Environment & Energy Committee it's even more important that you get in touch with them.

My letter (adjusted appropriately for the recipient) reads:

Senator,

I just became aware of Senator Rauschenberger's attempt to modify Illinois state law to completely ban municipalities, counties, cities and other political divisions within the state from offering data connection services in Senate bill 499 (specifically, amendment 001).

As one of your constituents I'd like to strongly encourage you to work against this attempt at ensuring that poorly-served areas of the state remain poorly-served.

By banning political entities from offering any kind of data services this modification ensures that in areas where no commercial carrier finds it cost-effective to offer services those services will remain completely unavailable even if the residents of an area are willing to provide them for themselves through local government. Even more, even if the infrastructure already exists because the municipality requires it for other uses, it will not be legally allowed for that infrastructure to be made available. This modification prevents the provision of data services that for the most part don't even directly compete with the broadband carriers that are pushing for these limitations - in particular it means that such options as inexpensive low-speed wireless access will not be available, even though that sort of low-cost connection would provide exactly what many people need as it did with the Minitel service in other countries.

The phrasing of the amendment is also very suspect - what precisely is a "political subdivision of this State," and does that phrasing mean that if this becomes law that all libraries that currently offer wireless Internet access to their patrons must immediately shut it down? Overall Senator Rauschenberger's proposal is an overreaching attempt to limit the options available to Illinois voters in a transparent attempt to cater to large phone and cable companies that aren't even based in Illinois, and I hope I can count on you to oppose it.

Sincerely,

Re:I can see 20 access points...

[cgenman]

For the same reason, a city is can't "decide" to go into any business. It just doesn't belong there

That is true, unless the community is not being served by any of the existing businesses. If a telco refuses to enter a market because it has bigger fish to fry, it is perfectly acceptable for government to step in to fill the need. The government can set this up as a pseudo business so that it can help meet the needs of a subset of it's population without charging all of them for it. There may not have been any private companies capable of putting a satellite into orbit for many years, but that doesn't mean NASA wasn't going to charge people for the service.

It's also arguable that in a monopoly situation where the population is not being best served by an existing singular channel it is acceptable for the government to step in and provide needed reasonable competition. Or if the situation is extremely exploitive, the government can and has declared emminent domain and forcibly bought out the owners.

What most people here are complaining about are the situations where an area is not being served by a broadband provider, which is still significantly more than 50% of the US, yet would be prevented from setting up their own divisions to cover the need, because they would be threatening potential business that the broadband providers at some point in the future might want to exploit. But as most of the people in these areas have been waiting for years for coverage maps to bother with them, it seems perfectly acceptable for localities to choose to pick up the slack.

Re:I can see 20 access points...

[dtdns]

The government is of, for and by the people, but it is not the people.

The problem with representative democracy is that it is not possible for the desires of every individual person to be represented. The ultimate moral question with this issue is "Why should the hard-working single mother of two who can barely pay her bills let alone afford a computer have to pay MORE taxes to support "free" Wi-Fi for a bunch of geeks who make three times more than she does and who ALREADY have Internet access anyway?"

Would I personally love to be able to get free broadband access from anywhere? Sure! But whenever government gives something away, it has to take from someone else to pay for it.