Colorado May Allow Cities To Provide Wifi

miguelitof writes "According to the TheDenverChannel.com, Colorado cities may soon be able to provide wireless internet service to their citizens. The state Senate will vote today (April 5th) on Colorado Senate Bill 152, which would allow cities to provide wireless internet access. The only proviso would be that cities would have to get approval from voters to use tax dollars. The cost to provide internet access to a 16 square mile area is about $600k. A city could charge as little as $16 a month and cover expenses."

Comments

This is a SHOCK and a SHAME.

[ShaniaTwain]

Public tax dollars should NEVER go to provide useful services to the people. Sounds suspiciously like communism to me. What about the poor companies? Its a slippery slope people, next thing you know the government will be picking up garbage and paving streets! Stop it now before its too late!

Re:Some services were made for government

[Chris Burke]

You make a good point, but "lower costs than any business could" seems a red herring to me. It's the same red herring that all the opponents of this bill use -- the idea that the government is going to be competing with businesses and have an unfair advantage over them.

While implementations may vary, I highly doubt that the government is going to be in the business of building wi-fi equipment, routers, etc. They are going to hire other companies to do this. They are going to hire other companies to do maintenance when necessary, and they are eventually going to have to pay an ISP to connect their wi-fi service to the Internet.

What this means is that there is going to be plenty of opportunity for businesses to make money providing wi-fi service to a city.

Of course they might not make as much money as they would charging monthly service fees to individuals in the city, because the city has collective bargaining power. Boo hoo. They know that the government is not going to be competing with them per se, but rather limiting their ability to gouge customers. They're just using the "competition" argument to invoke the name of Capitalism in the same cynical way that patriotism is invoked to get us to agree with things that have nothing to do with patriotism.

Always be wary of a large corporate/government entity that says that you should not be able to pool your resources with others and thus enjoy the same benefits as they do. Always be wary of anyone whose definition of a level playing field is the status quo with them holding all the advantages.