Slashdot Mirror
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.
...for all five residents.
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
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.
net send 192.168.*.* Please Evacuate. Incoming Hurricane.
"Um sir, wasn't that disabled in XP SP2?"
"Crap."
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.
I see the digital divide as caused by inept social programs, not fixed by them. The anti-poor and anti-minority regulations we have today destroy the access you want. Look at how the minimum wage destroys job opportunities for the poor and for minorities. The tax system we have in this country is even worse (most people pay only a tiny amount in actual IRS income tax but everyone pays a huge amount of their income for all the other taxes) for the poor.
If you want to help the poor and the minorities break this digital divide, you need for them to have opportunities in life that give them reason to learn about the Internet and about information freedom. Our public education system does the absolutely opposite, as it gives the poor a basically free daycare system that offers their offspring the indoctrination in the system that hurt their parents' desire to break free.
The only thing that really helps bring wealth to the poor is work -- hard work. Both my parents came to the U.S. with absolutely nothing, not even good comprehension of the language. Yet they both busted their rears so that my siblings and I would have better lives, and I work hard so that my children will have an even better opportunity.
Don't blame the lack of Internet knowledge on ISPs. I'd rather see privated completely deregulated electrical service as well.
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.
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!
Yes, because the digital divide is chock-full of people who are able to afford a laptop/desktop with a wi-fi card, but can't afford basic dial-up service. And as you can imagine, that's a large, large group.
/. Because we all know elected officials never want to block the citizens they represent from information....
...
And slightly OT, but I'm going to laugh very hard and very long when the first "Municipal Wi-Fi blocking content" story hits
well, with kids yeah. We have to protect the kids. And you know how irresposible some parents can be. So lets put a huge filter on porn coming down the pipe. Tax dollars shouldn't pay for porn anyway.
Oh, and smoking. Bad. Very bad. Lets ban any site that promotes smoking. Promotion of all things smoking over publicly financed wi-fi? I think not! You might as well just shove smokes in babies mouths.
What? This site offends the sensiblities of [fill in religious group/cult of choice]? Block them too. We're all fine, upstanding [christians, jews, muslims, hindis, scientologists] and there's no way our community should have to see this.
What? People are going to RELIGIOUS sites? Hasn't anyone heard of the seperation of church and state? If someone wants to cyber-pray let them pay for their own access.
Hate speech. Who doesnt' hate hate speech? Of course! Its gone. ("by the way, what is hate speech?" "Ah.. the devil's in the details")
Wal Mart? Do we really want our citizens helping keep that community killing, baby eating, spawn of satan corperation in business by allowing them to purchase cheap shit over our wi-fi? I think not! If you want to destroy mom and pop shops do it on your own nickel.
Why the hell is there a 144Kbps restriction?
Duh! It's because someone was paid a nice chunk of change to put it there.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
I'd rather see privated completely deregulated electrical service as well.
When will you anarcho-capitalists actually take economics 100.
Given
A) A service that has a near zero elasticity of demand in relation to price
B) Is infrastructure
(Things Fitting A&B: Roads, Water, Sewer, Power, phone, cable, electricity, gas)
You CANNOT deregulate, you CANNOT expect the "Free market" to ensure quality and low price.
Infrastructure doesn't follow the normal rules because it's something that should not be duplicated concurrently - imagine having two roads systems, or two seperate water systems, power etc - there isn't the space to do it and the costs are prohibitive. This prevents normal competitive practices of the free-market and favors large intrenched monopolies
Have you not been paying attention? power was deregulated in some areas - it resulted in artificially created roving blackouts to give the impression that demand exceeded supply so that price-gouging could occur.
Adam Smith himself said that capitalism needs enforced rules to keep all parties treating each other fairly - why can you not recognize this?
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
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