Slashdot Mirror
Orlando Cancels Free WiFi Project
EvilStein writes "According to local news, the City of Orlando has cancelled the city WiFi project. The 6 month pilot program ran for 17 months instead of the planned 6, but in the end, it was costing the city too much money and very few people were using the service. Might other municipal WiFi projects go the same way?"
...I live in Orlando and I had no idea the pilot program was going on. You'd think they'd advertise it somewhere - maybe even at the local university. In fact, I don't know anyone that knew such a project was in place.
Having personally experienced the wonderment of Orlando's failed municipal WIFI, I can personally say that it will not be missed. Connections were sub-2400-baud-modem speed if you could connect at all. If Orlando's experiment was the standard of municipal WIFI, it won't surprise me if all such experiments fail for general lack of interest.
I hope this doesn't disuade other cities from trying public WIFI. It would be a shame if Orlando's poor implementation of a good idea might doomed municipal WIFI.
On the other hand, perhaps Orlando is a bellweather of sorts. Municipal WIFI might fail for incompetence. On the other hand, without a municipality cluttering up the spectrum, interested residents of downtown Orlando might have the incentive to set up a cooperative ad hoc network. Er...right.
Actually I lived in Orlando for 15 years and I had no idea this even existed until reading about it on Slashdot... I'm not sure if that says more about the marketing of the service or about me as a person ;)
Seriously, I asked a number of people I know in Orlando if they knew this was even there and they have all said no.