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Dayton, Ohio: Free City-Wide WiFi

Posted by timothy on from the approaching-normalcy dept.

_Bunny writes "The City of Dayton, Ohio announced a plan to make all of downtown a WiFi hotspot - and as of last week, the network is live. This makes Dayton the first Ohio city to offer free WiFi access. Approximately one square mile of downtown is now live, including Fifth Third Field, the Oregon District, Webster Station and RiverScape. The WiFi project is a public/private partnership not funded by taxpayers, and comes at no charge to the end user." (According to the linked story at WHIO-TV, the city is actually paying about $5,000 per year, with advertisers picking up the rest of the tab.)

12 of 350 comments (clear)

  1. City Wide? by Nasa+Rosebuds · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't know what you mean by city-wide, but Dayton is a big place and I doubt "within a 1-mile radius of downtown" really covers it all. Still, this is cool.

    1. Re:City Wide? by er_head66 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No, actually you are wrong. This is a great idea. For an extremely minimal fee ($5000), they are providing a useful service to the city centre: free connection for office workers, people in transit and local businesses. This is exactly the direction I think wireless internet should be taking, the idea of blanketing regions with free internet and then seeing if a 'killer app' sprouts up that can take advantage of it. When more cities implement systems like this, hardware developers will feel more comfortable included wifi in PDAs and gadgets, sercure with the knowledge that there is actual network that users can take advantage of. Think GPS with Wifi that will give you a local map. Think VOIP cell phones. Think about the whole city toting OQOs and being mobile.

      In this case, I think it is very smart on behalf of the city to be providing this service and more cities should think about implementing similar plans.

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      There has been an error!
    2. Re:City Wide? by INetUser · · Score: 4, Interesting
      blanketing regions with free internet and then seeing if a 'killer app' sprouts up that can take advantage of it

      OK, so it's still on the 'build it they will come' notion / gamble then. I still don't see the great need for being connected like that all the time. I see wide open, anonymous access for hackers, virus authors and identity thieves. Of course nearly any WiFi access point qualifies for that.

      I also see a viable network for distributed RFID readers to access their database back ends to make for greater ease in people tracking. I see web cameras, rather than the more costly dedicated units, all over the place, and the US becoming like the UK. I see the back end capability for the advertisement boards like in the Minority Report movie.

      All of these things are intrusive and to my mind not good. And I'm by no means a luddite. I can just see no good coming from this. Granted other than reasonable free Internet connectivity.

    3. Re:City Wide? by BigolFatty · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Don't be so down on Dayton. Sure this won't revitalize downtown or anything, but its a step. I'll bet the city will make more than 5k/month in sales taxes by people connecting at a coffee shop in the Oregon District or watching the Dragons at 5/3rd buying $5.50 beers. Dayton needs wi-fi users downtown to balance out the thugs. http://www.whiotv.com/news/4202035/detail.html

  2. History in the making by Anita+Coney · · Score: 5, Funny

    This is a BIG event in history. Quite possibly the largest event ever. For the first time in history, there is actually a good reason to live in Ohio!

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    If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
  3. Hopefully... by jessecurry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...this will become a model for other cities. I know how valuable my WiFi connection on campus and in my neighborhood has become. I would love to be able to sit downtown and know that I have internet access available.

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    Those who know, do not speak. Those who speak, do not know. ~Lao Tzu
    1. Re:Hopefully... by funk_doc · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm surprised that anyone here at /. would want municipal WiFi, other than the ever eluding Free Lunch. Lets take a look at some of the problems that will arise:

      Static IP and Port Forwarding. I'm sure that many of you forward ports through your router/firewall for certain applications (http, ftp...). I can guarantee that the municipality will not support this feature, and it would be impossible to get a static ip. Once the municipality monopolizes the market, there will be no competition from the private sector. You can't compete with free. While private companies in other areas offer new features, lower price and more bandwidth (they have to compete, remember) you will be stuck paying high prices (taxes) for a slow connection. While the idea of other people who don't use the internet paying for your BitTorrent downloads seems like a great idea, it will cost you more in the long run.

      Censorship. Once this municipality has the power to decide what you can and can't view on the internet, do you really think that it would never be abused. Some religious group will donate large amounts of money to a campaign, and the politician will have to repay that group with censorship legislation.

      Internet access may seem high right now, and it is. Competition is real, prices have and will continue to go down as features are being added. My Comcast connection used to cost $59/mo, now I have more bandwidth and it's only $20/mo. Government is never as efficient as the private sector, it will cost everyone much more to let the government supply WiFi rather than a private company. Also, when was the last time you heard of a government program living up to it's promise? Do you think that this would be any different?

  4. Parking Lot LAN party! by Cruithne · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lets all do a parking lot lan party!

    Pay 4 bucks to park 24 hours, sit in your comfortable car with a laptop, and game it up on a free network... if only wireless didnt completely and totally suck for gaming :D

  5. Legal Issues... by timtwobuck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So what happens in any legal suit where there is unmonitored, illegal activity taking place over this network? Is the city liable?

    Is the city monitoring the traffic to prevent kids under the age of 18 from viewing illicit material?

    Will the RIAA come after them if someone uses this hardware to download illegal songs?

    1. Re:Legal Issues... by timeOday · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Is the city liable when drug dealers do business in a park?

  6. Government spaces by Shivetya · · Score: 4, Insightful

    most likely they get to advertise through other means, like stuffing fliers into mailings or hanging their company name on official web pages related to the project. Of course you have lots of little antenna around and the support crews can be branded as well.

    Plus being government there are probably some under the table considerations like zoning issues, fees, and similar. Remember a government providing an incentive or discount is not spending any taxpayer money. That is similar to what Washington does by labeling as a program spending cut the simple fact of not increasing the allocation of funds to it.

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    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  7. That's nice, but the plans are just Pipe Dreams by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    To get attention. There's no way the broadband industry will permit this. Check the massive campaign they've done (via Republican legislators) in Philadelphia and Houston to prevent municipal WiFi there.