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New Orleans to Deploy Free Wi-Fi City Wide
Lawrence_Bird writes "The Washington Post is reporting that New Orleans will deploy a city wide wi-fi network with free public access. Much of the equipment has been donated, but New Orleans will own and operate the network. Interestingly, they are only able to do this while a state of emergency remains in place as technically their planned 512Kbps service violates state law prohibiting municipalities from offering access at speeds in excess of 144Kbps, a restriction the city plans on fighting even though they will eventually outsource the whole operation."
Will this be the first case of never-ending SOE similar to the never-ending Beta?
This way consumers get to use the service first, and companies get to roll out their services without having to abide strict regulations and/or an actual committment.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Free WiFi while significant portions of their population are still displaced and / or homeless.
Perhaps their priorities are a bit backward?
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Note that nothing a government offers is truly free, even in the case here where the hardware is mostly donated.
Government-run programs are generally maintained by unionized public workers. These programs have little competition and often cost more than a private competitive market (note municipal water reclamation costs).
The city mentions they'll outsource the program to private companies, but do you believe these companies won't be owned by cronies? Even New Orleans has their own version of Haliburton.
Is providing Internet access ever a city's responsible? In my town we have 3 city-wide free WiFi providers and 20 local "coffee shop" providers. I don't see why New Orleans feels that they're needing a taxpayer funded ISP when what they really need is a tax hiatus to bring businesses and entrepreneurs to LA to create jobs and better lives that jobs help to build.
The hurricane damage is evidence to me of the decay of government projects and the wasted taxpayer money. That money would produce a safer city with more jobs if it was left to the citizens.
I honestly hope this isn't their only solution for hurricanes / floods in the future.
I did find it useful the other day, to go to Cooter Brown's and use their wireless while watching some football, and drinking some good beer...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
for narrowing the digital divide. I usually hate over-used politicised terms like 'digital divide' but regardless, it does exist, and free widespread personal net access is key to spreading information to more people. While internet access from libraries and such is great, it's better still to have access in one's home.
Imagine if electricity was not a public utility but a service offered by two or three price-gouging regional monopolies. A quick comparison of US broadband penetration and Europe's (largely) socialised system demonstrates why these sorts of projects are needed.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
*snort* when will they learn...
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
..the wireless infrastructure is being installed to be hurricane resistant.
...for all five residents.
Why do they need wifi there? Is there anybody still living in the swamps?
Great yet another service for the NO government to screw up. They've shown they can't organize anything, how will they be able to handle city wide WiFi?
How long after it is a total flop before they start blaming Bush for NE WiFi not working? I say less than 1 day.
Cool! Now New Orleans residents will have the connectivity they need in order to email an SOS to FEMA, so they can come rescue them!
This is much a better solution than spending that money on something as trivial as a safe levee system or housing for homeless people. This free wi-fi is actually working out quite well for them.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Don't they worry about flooding the public wavelenghts?
Now start distributing $100 laptops to poor ppl.
http://laptop.media.mit.edu/
Well, since no one can actually live in the New Orleans area, I guess we could all just drive through with our laptops...
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Perhaps this can be used to provide a backup communications system when the next hurricane hits? After watching a couple of documentaries on my local PBS affiliate, one of the key points of failure in the emergency response was a lack of organized (technical) communications between state, local, and federal agencies.
Even though the idea is rather diturbing, just think of the people that are in New Orleans. It is a good thing for those who have businesses open, though a few but will grow, and families that don't have telephone up yet. At least they can get news and communicate with people. At least the equipment was also donated and not bought with funds for rebuilding/rescue.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
They've obviously already started taking tips from Mike Brown's disaster consulting company.
Not only have they lost customers and equipment...now they have to compete with the Gov't...so much for free enterprise
Most of the city still doesn't have phone service. Getting enough WiFi up that people can use VoIP and get some basic web services will be a big help.
That money would produce a safer city with more jobs if it was left to the citizens.
Last I checked, in this country, the government is composed of -- gasp -- citizens, not space aliens from Uranus. At what point did Americans forget the "of, by, and for the people" routine? Why should a state or federal authority be telling the citizens of a town that they can't do whatever they blinking well please as far as public works projects? So the _citizens_ get together and say, golly, we can all chip in ten bucks and we'll have a wonderful benefit for our community that is worth far more than ten bucks to each citizen.
What's next? Gee, sorry Podunksville, you can't build a public park with a toilet. You need to sell the land off to a private developer so you can have the privilege of paying to sit on the grass or take a leak.
I don't see how this is any different.
Contrary to what the government and the media would have us believe, New Orleans and the south in general is still a disaster area. New Orleans specifically still is, for the most part, the same as it was when Katrina hit. Alot of places more "important" for tourism and business have been cleaned up, but the other areas like the Ninth Ward still look like warzones. The State of Emergency may last for years.
I wouldn't worry about it. They're making enough profits by overcharging the rest of us to make up for it.
I'm surprised at all the negativity about this.
/real/ meat in this article - the fact that the big ISPs have already lobbied in places to hobble the speed of such WiFi networks.
I'm also suprised at the lack of debate at the
I think this is going to become a huge issue as WiFi and WiMax take off.
My subdivision has some 500 houses in it. If half of them get high speed internet in some form, at $50/month they are paying out some $12,500 a month collectively for high speed internet access.
What if our subdivision decided to set up it's own WiFi network? Yeah, I can see the ISPs getting real nervous about this.
Also, I can see Cell Phone companies getting VERY nervous about this. If WiFi internet access becomes free and widespread, you won't need the cellular network anymore to make wireless phone calls. Just a portable wireless IP phone.
No wonder the big Telecom industries are out to squelch this.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Y'know, if the same mentality were applied to some existing government services . . .
(Caller): Help! My house is on fire!
(Phone voice): Do you have a FlameOut (tm) customer ID number?
(Caller): No, but my house is burning! My children are in there--Please help me!
(Phone voice): I'm sorry, but since you're not a FlameOut (tm) customer, I can't help you. However, we will be rolling our FlameOut (tm) Wagons to protect your neighbor, who I see is a subscriber in good standing. Thank you for notifying us of this condition and have a nice day.
{CLICK}
So when the levy breaks, no one will really care about the wifi, they'll be getting the hell out of town. And since the wifi will go down, they won't be distracted by silly things like Everquest.
Now, for the EMS services, backup APs will all be installed on inflatable begnets. They only come on once their depth gauge reaches 4'.
When the levy breaks... I'll have no place to stay
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
November Scientific American makes it clear that, owing to bad decisions made by the Army Corps of Engineers years ago, the timescale to solve the problems of New Orleans could be many years. Improving communications throughout the city will not make a significant dent in the funds available to solve the delta problems - which could run into tens of billions of dollars.
Pining for the fjords
This is the same New Orleans that had over 30% of its PD leave or actively engage in the unlawful activities plaguing it post-Katrina. This is the same New Orleans which is legendary for its corrupt local government and in a state that is almost synonymous with bad government to most southerners.
Yet it's going to do a "good job" running WiFi. One of these days, the starry-eyed true believers will come to the painful realization that "democracy" has no proven track record on keeping governments working for the people and that local governments are one of the last groups you'd want to trust to run your communication network.
Besides, let's just go ahead and put telescreens in our homes. It just blows my mind how anyone can in one breath whole-heartedly support government operation and/or ownership of the com. network and then complain about the Bush administration wiretapping us all a la 1984. Why not go ahead and put your toddler in a locked room with a dingo and then get self-righteously pissed off when your toddler gets mauled and eaten? Afterall, it's THEIR fault, right?
Bullshit. You give the government control over the com. network on that scale and when your precious civil liberties go out the window, you'll be one of the few victims of bad government to legitimately laughed at by succeeding generations. The government will assert its sovereignty and say, "it's our network, use it our way or get off." Then you'll look around and there won't be any competition because your tax dollars subsidize the network to the point that the private sector cannot compete.
All in the name of giving "poor" people (our poor are middle class by African standards) access to a network that all too often their volunary refusal to make use of their socialized education opportunities have rendered them incapable of exploiting.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
...due to mismanagement of funds, the New Orleans Wi-Fi system will only be able to withstand a CAT 2 slashdotting.
I read
When I was involved in a week long power outage in Norfolk are after hurricane Isabel (2003) I found battery powered AM radio to be the best source of information. The announcers worked overtime and did a great job of letting us know what was going one. NOLA has WWl which can be picked up over much of the US - I listen to it to get first hand info on whats happening there. It's simple, cheap, and works.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I have some extended family that's not well off. (Think: low-income housing) They want to "have it all" but don't at all have the resources to do it well. (Think: Pentium-100, Win95)
Using the cheapest ISP imaginable. It's amazing to me how much time they'll spend just trying to get online, and how much !@#!@# they'll put up with their painfully slow, virus-laden computer, just for the status and joy of "being online".
They put up with the unbelievable to save $40. (Cost of antivirus) They do not understand the fundamentals of computing, nor do they have the resources to pay somebody who does.
It's a Spammer's paradise, this "free" municipal Wifi. How do communities prevent this from happening?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Wow, this just makes me want to come back in live in a crime-ridden city with the worst police force and most corrupt politicians in the country, x-number of feet below sea level protected by dikes and levies constructed by the lowest bidder. Yup, free Wi-Fi will certainly make all the difference here.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Why the hell is there a 144Kbps restriction?
quite right. ... the wise man built his house upon the rocks"
for some reason something my 4 y.o. daughter knows that seems beyond US city planners:
"the foolish man built his house upon the sand
seriously; who on earth builds a city below w/level next to the sea ?!
When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown in to the sea
It seems to me they have more important goals than providing free wifi at this point. I can think of several:
-schools
-police
-electricity
-water
-sewage
I could go on, but you get the point.
-Ncik
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
So I do understand. But "Frankly, if we could get our fair share of royalties for letting all the oil/gas be mined on and off our coast...get the 40%-50% that other states do when natural resources like oil are harvested (many interior states)...revenue that we've not had, but, should have for years..."
Those land off the coast doesn't belong to the states it belongs to the federal government. That being said I am all for LA and Mississippi getting it to rebuild.
Levee's for a CAT 5? Which CAT 5? 195mph? or 250mph? CAT 5 is doesn't have a maximum so saying it will withstand a CAT 5 is sort of wishful thinking.
Having been through 3 hurricanes in the last 13 months I have a clue to how big a mess it is. We got lucky in that we didn't get any major flooding or storm surge but the weeks without power, the destroyed homes, and so on is enough. We still have people in Fema trailers from last year storms trying to get there homes fixed.
Good luck.
Get a new Mayor and Gov. They sucked. Our Mayor had our school buses prepositioned at the shelters to evacuate everyone last year and did the same this year. They also used them to evacuate anyone that was too poor to leave on their own before the storm. Also we have every assisted care facility and hospital as part of our emergence action plan. Not to mention we had food and water and sanitation at all of our shelters and enough shelter space outside of surge zones. We had not had a direct hit here in 40+ years before last year but they still had prepared better than New Orleans and the State of LA. I know this because a friend of mine works at our EOC.
BTW my local church sent about 150 people the help in Mississippi. Other groups from our faith went to LA as well. I believe we sent about 5000 people in total and a few million in cash. Of course not a month after we went we got hit by Wilma.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
municipal wi-fi. It is going to come down to a competition between municipal funded wi-fi vs. ad funded wi-fi, with the later ultimatly wining out. As computers and wi-fi hardware gets cheaper, we will definitly see ads be sufficient to fund the hardware/support needed. Corporations can sell ad space more efficiently than govt. so I think we'll see them win in the end when hardware gets cheap enough. For now, there's a short period of time where this model makes sense. In any case, this will be interesting.
No Sigs!
Sorry for the sarcasm if it offended you. I wanted to write something witty, and apparently it didn't go over well. I personally have nothing against New Orleans or free Wifi, I just think that instead of the mayor planning on building casinos and free wifi, the money could be better spent on 3 things that are needed immediately:
1) Housing for displaced residents who have nothing to plug their computers in to
2) Food and water for those who are hungry, including stray pets
3) Subsidies for businesses who need help getting back on their feet, which in turn, hires more New Orleans residents who will then possibly buy a computer and use wifi
Again, I hope the best for New Orleans and its residents who have suffered in many different ways. There is a better future ahead!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
My subdivision has some 500 houses in it. If half of them get high speed internet in some form, at $50/month they are paying out some $12,500 a month collectively for high speed internet access. What if our subdivision decided to set up it's own WiFi network?
$50 here gets you 6 Mbit downstream, and about 1 Mbit upstream.
500 of those gets you 3 gbit down, 0.5 gbit up. That's a lot more bandwidth than splitting 6 Mbit 500 ways.
In fact, 6 Mbit split 500 ways is, what... 12Kbit/sec each? (and 2 KBit/sec downstream)
Hell, to offer the 512Kbit mentioned here to 500 people, you'd need a 1/4 Gigabit connection. We're talking dual OC-3s which may well cost as much or more than the $12,500 for cable.
Some rich person needs to foot the bill for a privately owned and operated free WiFi service. Since it's not offered by the municipality, it wouldn't have the same restrictions.
Why is there a state law mandating a cap on municipal internet services? What was the reasoning behind that? I'd guess it was lobbying by existing providers, who didn't want 'unfair competition' from the G.
Part of me wonders greatly at what good wifi will do the people in NO at the moment. Do they all have power? Do they all have running and potable water? Do they have roofs? Do they even have computers with wifi cards? The other part of me realizes that wifi could be very, very useful to ongoing efforts to clean things up and get things running, and it does represent a lot of hopefulness and maybe even an effort to take advantage of the situation to push through legislation that kept getting batted down for stupid reasons before (although that's not necessarily.. admirable).
If they continue with efforts like this, and with large portions of infrastructure being rebuilt and the possibility of deep discounts to get businesses to move back in to the area, NO could become a new tech center.
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
(The Beatles)
...it's wireless fiction
Sweet, now I'll be able to play mario Kart when I go back to NO on christmas.
New Orleans is ranked eighth on this most dangerous cities list as of 2004. That's pre-hurricane data. My sources have their state and local governments as one of the most corrupt in the US. Would you walk around this city with a laptop? You could paint a target on your back too.
Autonomous Retard -- Is your camp safe? UnsafeCamp.com
You DO have a choice. Internet access is NOT a necessity nor a right. I choose not to have local phone service at my house, nor satellite TV / Cable, nor any form of internet access other than my crappy Nextel webbrowser. I don't deserve free access nor does anyone else.
Wonderful. Now there will live streaming web cams from every balcony, every window, and probably every bathroom. It's just what the internet needed more of...on the government dollar.
Contact Gillware for all your Data Recovery Needs! Data Recovery
There is also the infrastructure argument. There is no service that an argument like the one you present can not wok with. Sewers, we need water first. Water, we need disposal first. Houses, we need electricity first. Electricity, we need houses first. It can go on forever.
This is why many projects get locked in the perpetual planning stage. No one is willing to take the heat for getting started on the project, they would rather plan forever. They want perfect, and as a result never work toward good.
I think anybody savvy enough to need WiFi is smart enough not to move back below sea level after having it demonstrated to them that the local government accepts massive drownings every generation or so as "the cost of doing business".
He obviously knows how to keep things running
http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/
The telecoms would hate for cities, towns, civic groups, neighborhoods, or anyone else to get together and set up their own shared high speed wireless network.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
My understanding is that it is already deployed in the French Quarter, and will be citiwide in a year. But at 512kbps now, and 128kbps in a year (after the state of emergency is over) - seems rather slow. But not bad for free service while roaming around town. :) In fact here is the entire article from CNN to save you a click: http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/11/29/wirele ss.neworleans.ap/index.html
Tuesday, November 29, 2005; Posted: 2:40 p.m. EST (19:40 GMT)
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Hurricane-ravaged New Orleans is starting the nation's first free wireless Internet network owned and run by a major city, a move aimed at boosting the city's stalled economy.
Mayor Ray Nagin made the announcement at a late morning news conference.
Similar projects elsewhere have been stalled by stiff opposition from telephone and cable television companies aimed at discouraging competition from public agencies.
Nagin said the system started operation Tuesday in the central Business District and the French Quarter. It is to be available throughout the city in about a year.
The system uses hardware mounted on street lights to cover the city.
Most of the equipment was donated by three companies: Intel Corp., Tropos Networks and Pronto Networks.
The system will operate at 512 kilobits per second as long as the city remains under a state of emergency.
That will be slowed once the state of emergency is over -- that date has not been determined -- to 128 kps in accordance with state law, which restricts government-owned Internet service.
Horns are really just a broken halo.
As Tulane Law student who has to go back to NOLA in January I can safely say I have more pressing concerns like whether or not I will have electricity. My apartment survived Katrina (I live in the Garden District surrounded by 150 year old mansions that have survived MANY hurricanes), but power is sketchy at best in the city, wild dogs walk the street, houses are still being burglarized, the cops are as useless as ever, the mayor is corrupt, the city is run by morons because (read Democrats) elected into office by the lowest common denominator. I cant wait to graduate so I can NEVER come back again.
Tulane that giant tool of an institution plans to charge those who lost their apartments more for housing than Harvard or Columbia and they plan to stick these people on god damn cruise ships a million miles from the school. I dread what awaits me in January and as a 2L I cant transfer to another school and am totally stuck.
And to think Im going 100k into debt for this!
Free internet access will do very little for me. I guess thats 40 bucks a month I wont have to spend, but knowing NOLA and its government any service they do ultimately provide will suck and rarely work.
Ahh... New orleans is a new soviet state... will never get off the ground.
You are correct about the problems of dicing up wireless bandwidth. But our neighborhood is on Cable for high speed internet (no DSL available). And, as you know, cable is also a shared pipe for the neighborhood (and I can feel it in the evenings when the kids/parents get home).
I wonder what sort of equipment is used by the cable company today to pipe internet into our neighborhood? Does the current cable setup really cost $12,500 a month to service our neighborhood? (these are actual questions, not sarcasm).
Anyway, I'm sure WiFi and WiMax won't be able to compete with a landline in terms of bandwidth any time soon, but I can see this still being a threat to ISPs.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Even doing a free city-wide 144Kbps wireless network would be pretty cool.
My city sure ain't got that.
At that speed you can check your mail, send mail, chat, etc.
Well then, problem solved. Just go to the library and use their government-provided internet access..
Build a wifi for a city that has been destroyed by a natural disaster and poor built levee system? I think there are more important systems that need to be taken care of before building a wifi network, like a well built levee system that can handle more than a Cat5(yes I know, over build if you can) hurricane, or move the entire city about 80 miles north so its not below sea level.
Insert funny smart-ass comment here.
With cable and telephone network owners leaning towards hobbling or curtailing competitive services that use their lines, I think it is high time that governments get involved to guarantee their citizens access to vital services without the inherent filtering the current ISPs will use to promote their own services. Removing the Internet in a country would likely collapse their economy at this point, which indicates exactly how much of a vital service it is, and that it should be treated as a utility as a result.
I'll tolerate anything except intolerance.
Apparently deploying WiFi is cheaper than stringing CAT-5 cable... and since the levees were only built to CAT-3 in the first place, this is obviously an upgrade!
And, can people not smart enough to not rebuild below sea-level in hurricane ally be able to -use- wifi?
I met a guy in the parking lot at Ham Radio Outlet who had just come back from installing free metro wireless links (not 802.11, but point-to-point for patching up missing fiber) along the LA-MS gulf coast, with a volunteer organization called Radio Response.
All we need now is a Tesla-style tower to deliver free wireless power to New Orleans!
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Proseuting someone for breaking the law isn't censorship. Stop screaming censorship you fucking idiot, or you'll dilute the word so much no one will listen when something is actually censored. Since you think it is censorship, you're too stupid to be allowed to participate in the decision.
First of all, they are not clearly breaking the law. Most of these cases have been acquitted. I'm not sure if any have been sucessfully prosecuted, in fact.
But yeah, whatever. With your logic, the government never has and never will censor anything anyway. A law will simply be passed by the religious right or naieve soccer moms (or "for the children") that says "you can't say this anymore". "It isn't censorship - its the law!"... probably exactly what they will say.
So why need a goverment, just share your connection!
Outside of anarchy or absolute sovereignty (i.e. ONE sovereign), you have to compromise with your community, sparky, be it your neighborhood, town, county, state, country, hemisphere or planet. It's not immoral. It's Amoral.
Welcome to life.
These ideas are all a part of my presidential campaign for 2012.
http://www.leperkhanz.com/president
Enjoy
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
The reason why we pay upwards of $50/mo. for broadband internet is precisely because it is offered by private companies. I don't necessarily need all the bandwidth I'm getting for myself. It would be much more efficient to pool that $50 connection and share it with 49 other people in the neighborhood. But then that's less profit for the local cable monopoly. Sadly, the U.S. is going to lag behind the rest of the world in broadband adoption because we don't take it as a serious matter of building a public communications infrastructure. IMHO, the government should be in sole control of all transportation and communications infrastructure, as well as other major necessities that corporate cartels regularly gouge and abuse us for, like home heating oil, gas, and electricity. They can pay for it by eliminating the corporate welfare given to these same companies that are colluding to keep prices up and gouge the consumer.
Why do comments like this get modded up? It's downright childish thing to say and should be obvious to anyone capable of rational thought that this is not an either-or situation. They're not pulling construction workers off sites or relief workers from food distribution sites to set up and maintain wi-fi towers. The only complaint I could really undestand would be to consider whether the cost was worth the benefits, but there is so much money being thrown in so many directions at this point I don't think it matters.
I would bet the benefits are worth it, by the way-- Considering how many people are there from parts all over right now working to rebuild, I would bet there are a LOT of laptops and PDA's floating around the city. They're doing whatever they can to keep both relief workers and residents in the area, and wi-fi access certainly helps both with critical and leisure communications. Land-based power and phone service in a disaster area tends to be shaky... If I was in such an area I'd be very happy to have access to any reliable form of communication that could be made available.
in the corrupt city of New Orleans, directnic (the business that stayed up and running and provided the city with network connectivity) has been allegedly linked to a huge squatting scam. They've stolen over 144,000 domain names, most recently including the domain a mother put up as a memorial to her murdered 18 month old baby. There is a forum set up to discuss their misdeeds. They've been forced to give back domains by WIPO in every case tried against them. There is a class action lawsuit in the works. This is a huge abuse of power by a domain registrar, yet I can't seem to get this posted to the front page of slashdot.
advertising markets are already stretched. don't look to advertising for revenue, the well's dry.
... after they rebuild the city, could they call it New New Orleans? Please??
Sweet! Now I can drink my beer, eat some jambalaya, get flashed by hot chicks, and blog about it wherever I go!
401 - Attention span not found
FEMA did do a study in 2001, concluding that New Orleans was a high risk area for a natural disaster. But for various reasons, (like Iraq) federal funding has been cut significantly.
5 18,372455,00.html
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1
Please explain where local governments were given "tons of money" to address the problems found by the FEMA study you cited, but then spent the money on casinos.
There is only one casino in New Orleans - Harrah's. And they actually pay New Orleans quite a bit of money each year to be the exclusive casino in town.
I live in New Orleans. And nobody here is saying, "If only we fixed the levees with all that money they gave us for the repairs!"
The local levee board is responsible for levee maintenance and they are currently under a lot of scrutiny. But they didn't spend money on casinos (or casino), that was given to them for levee repairs based on a FEMA report. There was no such money.
Your information is lacking details, or just wrong.
How about using the MILLIONS of dollars that are made in NO every year during Mardi Gras?
I've seen many stories and heard many NO residents complain that everyone is ready to "come to New Orleans to party but they don't want to give us the funds we need to rebuild."
We've given you money. Millions every year when we come down to party. It's not our fault that your representatives have decided to squander that money due to their corruption. You voted for them. What with all my tax money that has gone to fund rebuilding down there and all the money I have spent over the last 8 years going to Mardi Gras I wonder how many of you are willing to foot the bill for my hotel stay or my food, drinks and transportation next time I come down there.
As for LA getting money for offshore mining, it's not the same as an interior state getting money for mining within it's borders. It's the Gulf. It's not part of LA.
In Minnesota, we pay taxes to our state and local government. If our representatives misuse these funds they are given the boot and go to prison or in Wellstone's case we just put him on a broken down plane and let gravity do the rest.
* Si hoc legere scis numium eruditionis habes *
No, they are not.
"We were heading for a murder rate of 72 per 100,000. New York City is at seven." Scharf says, according to city records, there were 265 murders in New Orleans last year, 258 murders in 2003, and 275 in 2002. Warren J. Riley, New Orleans' acting superintendent of police, says the drug dealers and gangs evacuated with the residents and haven't returned.
What if our subdivision decided to set up it's own WiFi network?
So you'll need an infrastructure right? A router, a couple access points, some way to manage access, etc. Next you'll probably want someone to run it, unless you feel like having 499 house holds call you ever time they can't get their email. Finally, you'll need a bill collector to make sure everyone's paying in to cover the monthly fees and denying access when they don't.
Congratulations. You've just become a service provider.
You are lying.
Don't rebuild them either, with federal money if they get destroyed. If those areas seem to think that a one bedroom hovel is worth a quarter million dollars, let *them* come up with the money for rebuilding right smack dab on top of known dangerous earthquake faults.I can't see making poor and middle class people in "flyover" country subsidise the uber rich and just normal rich on the coasts. Want to live where it's very cool but very dangerous? Pay for all of it out of your pocket then.
The point is coming to be moot soon anyway, the US insurance industry is just slap not going to pay for massive rebuilding in areas that get hit with hurricanes yearly, burn down from brush fires yearly because it's a tinderbox desert, or fall down from earthquakes. These last two hurricanes have basically bankrupted them, even though it's not making much of a splash on the news. We have areas that haven't been rebuilt yet from the hurricanes in 2004, let alone this year. Is this sinking in yet? Enough's enough. If rich people want to live in dangerous areas because it's trendy and cool, let them pay 100% of the costs. If poor people try it, well, there's no help for it, it's just pure lame and in the US you should be allowed to fail. If state X keeps getting ripped off by the feds, there's a solution, it's called FIGHT BACK. Take every fed you see to court on anything you can think of. Don't just whine about it.
I don't know what the percentage of port workers is or was in NOLA before the storms, but the area could be rebuilt just as a working port facility and skip the drunk stoner aspects, which is most of it. I mean, really, all it is is a drunk party town, all in all not that important. An OLD drunk party town. Just because some city was around before doesn't mean it always has to be, archaeologists are always finding "lost cities". New orleans has become untenable without dropping quad billions and zillions of dollars on it, and even then it probably won't be enough. The rest of the US has the same crumbling roads, old decrepit bridges, old water and sewer lines, you name it, worn out. Rebuild one city, or rebuild the infrastructure in a thousand cities? This is not a tough call. The US is running in the RED bad. We just don't have the scratch for all this stuff. It's bad enough there's bozos off foreign adventuring with billions of dollars a year, just trashing the US reputation and causing more problems, now we have to compound it and drop billions so some people can have a cool area to go get drunk at? Ain't seeing it myself. Rebuild some port facilities, yes, makes sense, the bulk of the area? Nope, does not make sense. It had a good run, be happy with that. Bury it, let the marshes take back over, it's better for the gulf anyway to have massive marshes there and will help to protect the still viable and useful areas inland from future storms. Go build NOLA2 back inland someplace. LA is a big state, you can find the area for a *New* New Orleans on some firmer ground above sea level someplace.
Since when does "deregulation" imply an government-sponsored (coercive) monopoly? If government is involved in any way in a market beyond simply protecting against force, then that market is NOT free and NOT "deregulated".
Here's a little tip. When a politician speaks, the truth is often the exact opposite.
Don't they mean New New Orleans?
Why does it take a natural disaster to think of adding city-wide internet? Clearly, it could have been useful before the hurricane to alert authorities and get the word out. (albeit, perhaps the grid would not survive the hurricane and the subsequent flood).
Which will become the first in the country..Mountain View or New Orleans?
Check this:
Google to unwire Mountain View
>So you'll need an infrastructure right? A router, a couple access points,
/will/ be necessary to have someone install, set up, and maintain the hardware), this sort of thing can easily be outsourced. The community already outsources lots of for-hire services, like landscaping, security, maintenance, etc. Why not IT?
>some way to manage access, etc. Next you'll probably want someone to run it,
>unless you feel like having 499 house holds call you ever time they can't get
>their email. Finally, you'll need a bill collector to make sure everyone's
>paying in to cover the monthly fees and denying access when they don't.
>
>Congratulations. You've just become a service provide
Good points.
However, we already have a homeowners' association, and we already have to pay $81/quarter to it, so a fee collection mechanism is already in place for our neighborhood.
While ideally it would be nice to have someone to call if you can't get it to work, it's not entirely necessary. Once you actually get the hardware up and running, you simply hand out instructions on how to connect to all new folks who move into the neighborhood. Or the instructions could be printed in the quarterly newsletter all homeowners receive. If you can't make it work for you, well, too bad. There are lots of neighborhood services that I don't take advantage of for whatever reason (like, say, the tennis courts or swimming pool) but I still pay for. This would be just another one of those things. But if it really was necessary (and it
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Would you like to prove the existance of something with a non-zero elasticity of demand in relation to price?
The correct term would have been "relatively price inelastic" i.e. the downward slope on a graph of price to use has a drop to run ratio of less than 1:1, so it takes a large increase in price to induce a large decrease in use, as opposed to e.g. the price of a specific bottle of perfume, where a 10% increase in price might induce a 20% decrease in use (no one hit me with the luxury good inverse price elasticy thing doesn't relate to elec. issue).
And no the only good reason is not use of land, its the idea that since you have high fixed costs and low marginal costs and high price inelasticity, the market will result almost certainly in one or two providers who screw everyone in sight with a combination of high prices (relative to marginal costs) and worst service they can bear (cable companies pre satellite for example). Oh and I forgot, the service itself ie being an ISP should involve NO creativity and really NO value add, it is just build and maintain the infrastructure. Let private companies on every end of the network worry about the value-added stuff. Any company asserting an issue with state run infrastructure is just looking for an annuity.
So internet use has migrated from a high elasticity item used by the financially or educationally elite (relatively) to an item that is truly a requirement for living in our modern society (just ask yourself what you would say to anyone telling you they didn't have internet connectivity at all, certainly you would view them as more backward than someone who didn't have a telephone).
First the politicos divert a big chunk of money from maintaining the levees. Then a big storm hits. A day later the levee gets a big tear at its weakest point. Millions of gallons of water rush in and fill the bowl of the city, with the deepest part of the bowl in the poorer neighborhoods. All the people leave and gradually the richer people come back.
The insurance companies won't settle until the feds agree to strengthen the levees. The feds won't set standards for the levees until the insurance companies commit to rebuilding.
Time passes. Rich neighborhoods are rebuilt, poor neighborhoods aren't. Finally the politicos claim that 'something must be done' and use eminent domain to force the poor people to accept 15 cents or less on dollar for 'fair market value' of the property. Fair market value after the flood, which is next to nothing. The politicos offer huge tracts of formerly poor neighborhoods to their campaign contributors at a tiny fraction of the propertie's former worth. After the campaign contributors have completed the transfer, the feds announce that the levees will be rebuilt to Cat5 standards. The insurance companies don't have to make massive payouts to the former owners of the property.
The campaign contributors announce that they are relocating their headquarters to the new vacant areas of New Orleans. For this they get huge tax writeoffs, far exceeding the cost of relocating and the new construction. An area outside of the French Quarter is turned into a Disneyland-style theme park. The rest of the flooded formerly poor neighborhoods are turned into housing tracts, single-story cookie-cutter particle-board houses and ugly row apartments. Most of the people who move in are white from other parts of the country.
The black people who used to live in NOLA are scattered to the slums of Baton Rouge, Houston, Jackson, Memphis in such a way that they will never develop block voting power.
Hey, I used to live in New Orleans. I even voted for Edwin Edwards once or twice. This is just the way things work there.
>I don't see why New Orleans feels that they're needing a taxpayer funded ISP when what they really need is a tax hiatus to bring businesses and entrepreneurs to LA to create jobs and better lives that jobs help to build.
/.ers would agree with.] Further, it provides redundancy for city wide communication. -- A good thing in a hurricane zone.
*Sigh*
Please read TFA before you spout off about things you know nothing about. I'ts not taxpayer funded.
It simply amazes me how ignorant so many of you are BUT how bold you are about sharing your opinions about something you know nothing about.
The equipment was donated to the city and they (frankly) didn't know what to do with it... Do they let citizens use it free? Do they charge a token amount? Do they let business owners use it free?
They made the right choice. Let everyone use it for free. [dare I say it, a move 99% of
This is probably the best single thing that has happened for the the business community in New Orleans in the last month.
Yes, thousands of computers got flooded... What apprears to be lost on many is that people did the most remarkable thing when they lost their computers -- THEY BOUGHT NEW ONES. Shocking I know.
Everyone (except one) I know who lost a desktop replaced it with a laptop. New Orleans right now today probably has the highest laptop ownership per capita of any city in the world.
fact is the cheapist way to provide such services is by a govt monopoly paid via landrates or consolidated revenue (ie income tax)
Take a hypothetical case of a city/county/district/state/nation-wide region where 5 competing networks of similar size each provide full region coverage, each holding about 20% of the market in the network region. Now compare that to a govt telco monopoly with the same city/county/district/state/nation-wide coverage, but instead having 100% of the market. In such a situation the private networks that only have 20% of the market have virtually the same costs as the govt monopoly that holds 100% of the market, but have to spread those costs over a much smaller user base.
Remember in regards things like public utilities, telcos & network infrastructure the economies of scale of govt monopolies are king, easily beating the multiplicity of waste from the unnecesary redundency of private companies competing in the same market.
Sure govt statutory authorities may potentially have higher labour costs but that's more than neutralised by other factors. For example statutory authorities are exempt from local govt zoning laws, can obtaine financing at lower interest, don't pay taxes, have easy & cheap axcess to govt land & private land through eminent domain, can share costs with other govt depts & statory authorities (for example offices in govt buildings) & need little marketing/advertising overheads. Plus revenue via landrates or consolidated revenue makes accounting much cheaper as there's no billing or user account overheads
Fact is the only reasons why many of the worlds utilities & govt telco monopolies were broken up & privatised was because of the now discredited neo-liberalisation ideology of the economic rationalists & the greed of those trying to make a quick buck & politicians wanting quick cash from privatisations to pay for election promises. Hence we have lobbying by upper management in corporatised govt utilities hoping to get the huge payrises & stock options that privatisations bring, lobbying by the business communty because of the big fees that can be made by those in the finance, consultancy & securities scene from privatisations & finally lobbying & backyard deal making by politicians, party faction leaders & bureaucrats with the aim of retiring into a consultancy or company board or being owed a favour by those that do.
Bush wanted to get Mayor Nagain's opinion on the recent Supreme Court nominations.
So he asked the NOLA Mayor what he thought about 'Roe vs Wade'.
The Mayor thought about it and said "I don't care how they get out of the city..."
Libertas in infinitum
A bunch of destitute niggers who have chosen to be uneducated move to a place called "The Big Easy" so they can cash in on the biggest welfare honeypot there is. Now they want to give them free Wi-Fi too? Why? Seriously, what possible use could they have for it? I mean, we're talking about a group of people here where the "productive member of society" is the exception and not the rule. What productive use would they have for it with the exception of looking at "bling" for the Mercedes they'd like to have, but can't afford, because they'd rather smoke crack than get a job?
Yes, it's a troll post... But a true one none-the-less.
New Orleans was built were it was and the levees were built along the Mississippi because both are required by the nation. I am not talking about the tourism or oil. The New Orleans port complex is the largest by volume in the US and the fifth largest in the world. We have the levees along the river because the nation needs a navigatable river. Large ocean going ships can go as far as New Orleans and barges take commodites the rest of the way into the entire center of the country. The entire economy of the center of the country from agriculture to steel is predicated on cheep movement of commodites that the river system provides. Thats why the US took responsibility away from Louisiana for flood protection. Unfortunately the corps of engineers has been malfeasant. Publically saying they built the flood walls to cat 3 standards while actually building flood walls that didnt stand up to the cat 1 or 2 that most of New Orleans actually got./ 1133336910287360.xml?nola/ 1132558719240640.xml?nolay -90/113238581335800.xml?nola
l itics_katrina.php
http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-0
http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-2
http://www.nola.com/search/index.ssf?/base/librar
They have lied about the construction techiques they used and futher would release their records on the flood ways citing Homeland Security Concerns! Does that really matter now? In our own investigations using sonar, an independent investigating team has discovered that the steel piling only go to half the depth the corps claims.
Luckly for the US, most of the port system has survived the storm in good order. But how long to do you expect the port workers to continue to work without the support of a city? How long will the work overtime inorder to make up for people who have not come back because they have no place to comeback to and the country does no seem to want them back?
A good article on the importance of New Orleans and the current situation:
http://www.stratfor.com/news/archive/050903-geopo
The reason for the wifi law is most likely the one you suggested. This is a perfect example of the corruption that makes LA (in)famous.
I do not often weigh in on these sort of threads. However, in this case I might be able to clarify some of the reasons. I am currently working on a similar project in another city of the same size. First, the primary reason for installing wireless access is for public service (Police, Fire, EMS, City Operations). Since the infrastructure is there, and will not be unduly taxed by public access, there is no reason not to provide same. The systems used can easily segregate public, non-secure access (for web-surfing) from encrypted/secure communications. The current mobile terminals (called MDT's or KDT's) in use by PS agencies provide only very low speed communications. Second, the equipment has been provided by companies who see a benefit in providing same. New Orleans has one of the most advanced video surveillance networks in the country, all working over wireless TCP/IP systems. The added equipment provides much in the way of security for all citizens, whether residing in or visiting the city. That infrastructure (including VOIP) was in place well in advance of **ANY** other communications systems in the city and proved a major help in starting the recovery efforts. The only other effective communications structure was provided by Amateur Radio (suprise, suprise we got involved again). Let's stop finding ways to criticize separate, parallel initiatives to help a sorely damaged community recover from a major (though not unforseen) disaster.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)