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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?"
Someone tell them to stop, I'm in the middle of dow$£$"%[NO-CARRIER]
liqbase
From the article: But city officials said that only about 27 people a day took advantage of the program -- not enough to justify the $1,800 the city paid every month for the service.
Maybe naively I've been waiting for the propogation of wireless to be everywhere and always available and if not free, at least very inexpensive, and ubiquitous. The quote above snapped me back to reality. Sure wireless everywhere is the buzz these days, but how many people really need, or want it? I would venture even in the techno-elite slashdot crowd many wait for wireless everywhere but only a relatively modest subset of those would actually use it, and of all who use it, it would not likely be at great volumes everywhere (as in, that's kind of what it needs to be to sustain and maintain the infrastructure).
Wireless internet isn't the same as cell phones in the sense that wireless access to the internet is nice, but doesn't drive communications as does telephony. Wireless internet access is a nicety but until wireless folds neatly into existing or expanding other necessary infrastructure (e.g., cell phone) I wouldn't be surprised to see other experimental free wireless internet sites suffer the same fate (really the question asked by the article).
If a city as large as Orlando didn't sustain the experiment there are many other cities that would point to that as justification for not even bothering trying, at least not in the near future.
(Doesn't mean I don't want it, just means it's too niche-y a market right now.)
Screw WiFi, I want free fiber connections.
-William Brendel
Why do taxpayers need to fund free WiFi when you can just get it from your neighbor's right out of the box, default install Linksys/Netgear/Airport router?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
I live in Kansas City. If the city put in free wireless in our downtown - nobody would use it. There's nothing in our down town to do .. after 5:00PM (except buy drugs, hookers, or be on a cleaning crew).
A city running something like that would give me the willies anyway. Who's to say they wouldn't be monitoring every piece of information - and/or someone sitting there with AirSnort doing the same..
= Grow a brain...
... and I've never heard of this.
Why not? I'm a technically inclined 20 something who would have used this, had I known about it.
I think that is the real problem here. Their target demographic didnt even know about it!
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
Sounds great, doesn't it? Free WiFi for the entire city. No need to search for hotspots. No need to pay to surf while you're sipping your Starbucks coffee. But...realistically, who's going to use it? I'm a WiFi junkie and I keep forgetting about all these free WiFi initiatives. Also, we need to keep into consideration that first wee need a very mobile client base, people lugging around their laptops and then using them somewhere. When they do pull out their computers to work, it's usually at a hotel (which generally provides WiFi now) or at work (provided network) or at home (probably networked). I doubt anyone is going to cancel their Internet service at home simply because the city provides free WiFi. I'd much rather blame Comcast for a downed network than rely on the city. Like I said...it sounds great, but the logistics and cost of it all far outweigh the reality of the situation.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
...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.
I like how Government programs get cancelled due to initial lack of use....cancel the wifi, cancel the bus routes only a few people use....the government isn't a corporation, its there to help the people, not turn a profit. If only a few people were using a park would they pave it? If only a few people used the courts would they close them? Some things are just a public service, and WiFi is the public service of the 21st century.
Please don't get the impression that this was a city-wide project. In reality, the signal was only available over a few city blocks and one park in downtown Orlando.
This failure is clearly because of a poor location choice. The main branch of the Orange County library is only a block away from Lake Eola park where this project was centered, but no signal was available in the library when I was there earlier this year.
I hope they didn't kill the wireless in the library downtown though; that works quite nicely and is a great benefit when visiting for relaxation or research.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
$1800:mo for 6 months pilot, extended to 17 months, means they planned to spend $10K, but spent $30K instead. For a system to support "up to 200 people at once" - which would have been $9:mo, just in costs, for a hotspot. That's not "municipal WiFi", that's a token gesture, doomed to fail.
How much could they have spent getting people to know about the service, known to everyone in business as "marketing"? And with that kind of tiny coverage, what possibility could it have had to be meaningful as "citywide"? None at all. Philadelphia's project will cost over $10M, complete coverage for 1.5M people. And it will not just be some "hotspot startup", it will be a complete coverage, so people can forget about the network, and just get access to Internet content, services and people. That has a good chance of success.
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make install -not war