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Free Wi-fi Prompts BellSouth to Withdraw Donation
turbosaab writes "Shortly after learning of the New Orleans plan for free city-wide wireless internet, Bellsouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate a damaged building to be used for police headquarters. According to the Washington Post, 'Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert.'"
They may as well just strangle puppies in front of orphans. I'll never use thier services.
In Soviet Russia, backwards is everything.
Are they being jackasses and withdrawing their offer because they're not being used for the wifi or because they think if they city can afford wifi they can afford to buy the building from them? Either way, this is a seriously stupid PR move.
Which is basically, nada. It was all about what they could get out of it (good PR in this case). And as soon as it looked like New Orleans was going to do something that would make it harder for them to profit, poof goes the offer.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
The article states that the Internet service is in response to hurricane Katrina, in an attempt to help speed recovery efforts. I can understand why BellSouth would be upset about this, being a taxpayer funded competition, but taking back your offer of a building to help rebuild the local law enforcement of a destroyed city. . . thats just a dick thing to do, shame on you BellSouth.
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
Spite for the sake of profit -- what do you expect from a business culture that rewards borderline sociopaths?
It's not like Louisiana has a sterling reputation for honesty and integrity in political dealings. I bet BellSouth was offering the building for "free" in the first place for some sort of inside deal in service or reconstruction.
Then the city government starts talking about taking away the local broadband market, and you betcha that building suddenly has "issues needing to be worked through". Wink wink.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
That's just crappy. Really.
Why do other countries have 25 mbit connections with cable for $20 a month and in the US we can't give a 512 kbit line for free while the city is a complete mess. And they can't provide more than 128 kbit after the city gets back to normal.
Not that anyone could use the wifi very much without power anyway, but thats another story.
RIAA + Sony = Rootkit of all Evil
I'm not one to side with a "greedy" corperation, but this seems like a knee-jerk typical "stir the pot" title to me.
Half way down the article, an actual source (Jeff Battcher) from Bell South is quoted as saying that they are suprised that the city officials would claim this, as they are still working out the terms of the building, and that the offer is still on the table.
On the other hand, the article claims that "city officials", no specific source, claims that Bell South is withdrawing the offer. Seems kind of fishy to me. As usual, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Maybe the NOLA Police should also withdraw their civil protection of Bell South HQ in the city.
sig my booty, check my website
I saw Duane Ackerman (CEO of BellSouth) kicking a kitten last week.
Let me get this straight: A company donates a damaged building that may cost millions to repair to be the headquarters of the most corrupt police department in the US, and then renigs when told that the city has plans to gut their DSL monopoly with free Wi-Fi?
Is that the story?
Seem to me that everyone wins.
The city isn't stuck pay to rehab a wrecked building, the cops, lacking a HQ, wouldn't be as efficient at coluding to be corrupt, a monopoly gets shafted, then outs themselves as greedy bastards, and the citizens get free WiFi!
What's the downside here?
HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
The thing about New Orleans is that they're basically starting from scratch in large parts of the city. They have to lay out new power and communications lines through large areas, and the incremental cost of an additional few strands of glass is nothing. They have to rebuild all of the traffic lights, street lights, etc. The real incremental cost of adding the infrastructure for the city-wide wifi is insignificant, and the other work needs to be done.
It has the benefit of getting people (and businesses) to come back. People that live there pay taxes. People that don't live there don't, at least not to the city. The city needs the tax base. I'm betting that someone pulled some numbers out of their arse, threw it in a spreadsheet, and showed a net fiscal gain for the city to install free wireless. Hell, they might even be right.
The key here is that it's nowhere near as expensive to install something like this for New Orleans as it would be for an undamaged city, perversely enough... just because of how much rebuilding will need to be done anyway. Best to rebuild it right.
-30-
BellSouth also loves to heap questionable charges on your bill. They charge $80 to transfer your number if you move, even though it takes all of five minutes and is done without the operator getting out of her chair.
When I moved from Atlanta, I canceled my BellSouth service. Three years later I got calls from debt collectors demanding payment for several months of service after I canceled it. I basically told them to fuck off, and never heard from them again. If they try to garnish my wages, I swear to God, I'll fly a jet into the BellSouth tower...
I've been a customer of Bell$outh, $BC and a few others.
It is my opinion that Bell$outh is actually worse than $BC, which is hard to believe.
I try my darnest to Not do business with either one of them (home & work). I actually prefer to pay more from a different provider just to incite competition and avoid those clowns.
There is No innovation from these Bozos. Missed the boat on VOIP. I mean look at Verizon they're working on fiber to the curb. Any how long are we going to have to pay a surchare for touch tone service? What a joke and rip-off.
I hate their support (1st level outsource). Here's a little secret when calling either one of these guys, if you select that it is a new install for DSLs (even though it is not) you always get US based personnel. T's, Frames, etc are not outsourced in my experience. But last time I had a Frame problem, it took hours to find anyone who even knew what Frame Relay was at $BC (actually I never did find anyone at $BC, pathetic).
Hate to say it, but I long for the day when both of these companies are out of business.
Who will guard the guards?
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
This is ridiculous. What do they feel threatened by? Sure, citywide wi-fi might cause the loss of some customers, but it could have gained them many more. Does BellSouth have any idea what happened when coffee shops with free wi-fi started popping up in my neighborhood? I ordered DSL! After I had a taste of broadband, I realized I wasn't going to sit in a coffee shop all day long but and I no longer wanted to be limited by dialup in my own home any more so I decided to pay for it. Because it is unlikely a free wi-fi network's quality of service will match the quality of service of my own line running into my home. BellSouth could have used the citywide free wi-fi as a "gateway drug" to selling their own broadband service, but it looks like they just blew the opportunity. Boneheads.
That the government can offer a better service for free... with the kind of service I have gotten out of US telco's I can see why they can't sell their product. No one complains that we don't have private roads. Maybe internet service needs to be free. It is certainly becoming necessary to normal cultural development. So what happens is the government provides basic access and if you want faster then you pay. That will certainly put pressure on the market to fix the current state of insanity that is US internet services.
BellSouth does have a fiber to the home program. It's mostly secret, but they're moving everyone over to a BBG backend which they think will help them support the number of customers that their fiber plan is going to generate. (It won't, their BroadBand Gateway system is so awful it's redonkulous, and if you know a major BLS technician, he'll admit to you it's so, and likely to be so for years).
Lots of customers are already on fiber to the curb, especially in Florida. It's speed capped at the NOC in software for competition reasons, and it costs the same as DSL currently, but they want everyone on fiber to the home in a few years.
Most of this is stuff you only know if you put 2 and 2 together, but it's obviously their plan.
The city is making a good decision by offering wifi service, but they also need to recognize that it'll make them some enemies.
I live in Louisiana, though I am not originally from here. The comments about the corruption in this State are not fair. The Feds want to deny us reasonable help, on the basis of such slander. Slashdot should be able to do better. Bellsouth are not exactly the most ethical company, especially when their monopolies are challenged. I refuse to do business with them, since before the Hurricanes. They seem to be acting badly again, so boycott them. However, please do not slander Louisiana. Remember, most of the 'hurricane relief' around here has been done by regular people helping others. The Feds have been useless. In a town a bit North of where I live a shelter had 3000 people in it at one point, with no government aid whatsoever. It was entirely supported by donations by locals. In the town of Lafayette, where I live, Bellsouth is fighting the local, city owned, utility system, because it wants to lay fiber to every home. The utility will do a better and cheaper job than Bellsouth, so Bellsouth are upset. So, feel free to be mean about Bellsouth, but do not slader Louisiana, unless you know what you are talking about. We are down, but do not deserve to be kicked. Kick Bellsouth and the moron in the Whitehouse and his useless cronies instead.
Doesnt the city of New Orleans have bigger issues right now. Seems to me that they should be worrying about rebuiding their city, instead of offering free wi-fi in the first place.
A lot of copper is corroded. All the telephone building demark points were under water. Communications is essential to rebuilding. This is very true where the building is uninhabitable. Wireless is the way to go. This is part of dealing with the rebuilding. How long do you think it would take to replace every copper junction box, flooded trunk cable to the junction boxes in the city and all the demark points on the buildings. This is a quick way to get VOIP phones and Internet to the construction trailers.
The truth shall set you free!
They are being incredibly stupid. First, these will need a backbone to support them. They could easily have won the contract. In addition, as part of that, they could then insist on 11B, rather than 11G. That means that each site gets at most 5.5 megs (just let one or two leechs on that) . Then limit how much bandwidth leaves the city for the free hook ups. With the city covered by "free wifi", it would have taken out any real compitition from WIFI providers.
At first, this network would be used for intercity comm. As time went on, more ppl would head out to the net. In addition, as ppl came back and brought their own radios, there would be interference. So if end users want any real speed, they would have to pay for it. At first, it may be a higher speed access to the Internet (priority/total bandwidth), but it may also mean a DSL line. Finally, they could have instisted that Ray do a few ads for them saying that BS helped NO get back on their feet. Now, Ray will be talking, but it will be about somebody else and negative towards BS.
Man, these monopolies know how to shoot themselves in the foot.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
This isn't true. You can set yourself to be No Pic (10x1) for Long Distance. 10x1 means your calls are routed by which ever carriers equipment pics it up first, and isn't preset so they don't even guarantee you can make an LD call. The ILEC/CLEC can charge a one time Fee to change your pic, but they cannot charge you for having it set to 10x1 nor can they charge any surcharges like the National Access Fee.
What they are probably charging you for is a Toll Restriction, which is usually extremely high, that costs about 2 - 10 dollars per month. It is an optional service and you can have it removed from your bill, unless you are receiving a handful of government benefits that require a toll restriction, in which-case, you be reimbursed for it anyway.
Maybe I'm just completely "out of the loop" so to speak, but I really can't understand how all these cities can A) justify and B) afford to offer all this free wireless internet access. Being devil's advocate here, and ignoring the fact that BellSouth may be a corporation that everyone loves to hate, how is it allowable for a city government to basically destroy the market for local Internet access? I mean, aren't the people who say it's illegal government competition basically correct? It does take away any motive to pay for Internet access, right?
And how can they afford the infrastructure necessary to provide wi-fi in the first place? Honest questions here, this particular aspect of Internet history has been bewildering me for many months now. I guess I just haven't read enough about it. Anyone with a better handle on this phenomenon care to comment?
I guess the last question would be, why are they doing it? Why aren't these places just relying on the open market to provide Internet access? (Let's ignore New Orleans for the moment.) Is it just to attract businesses and people to the area? What is the main purpose of a city going through all the trouble and expense of offering free wi-fi? What is the benefit to the city as a whole? I just don't get it.
Any insights would be appreciated.
They don't want you to have Free-WiFi because once you have it, you won't want to pay for it.
These companies see WiFi as another service they can charge you for, and all of those free hotspots spoils them a future revenue source.
They're scared of the future, because the communication services are getting cheaper and cheaper. You don't have to spend that much bandwidth just to do voice communication, with all those bandwidth potential being laid over the planet it will be so cheap to do voice that some company might decide they can afford to give it away, for free, just for the sake of publicity. And once one company had done it, every other will have to do the same.
Imagine a "free" cellphone network, where you just have to pay for the phone device. If whe switch over to VoIP this can be a reality... And of course if you're using a 100% digital network you just could offer free internet as well, only with a limited bandwidth.
And I picture this for countries that have a private telecommunications network, on countries where the teles are owned by the governament this can happen even sooner.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
There are many, many cases of services that are answerable to and funded by a state and that are not subject to this kind of selective provision. Examples in the UK include the BBC and the NHS.
The way it works is that these services are managed not directly by politicians themselves, but by civil servants who are ultimately accountable to politicians, who are then ultimately accountable to the electorate. Because there is a public commitment that these services will be universally provided, and that no one can be excluded from them, there would be a public outcry if that were to happen, and that is why it doesn't happen. Governments work very well when the people do their job of holding governments accountable. It is mainly when people in government realise they will not be held accountable (for example, by an electorate which sees it as their 'patriotic duty' to support government policy whatever it may be) that government fails.
I imagine with wifi it would be quite easy to make a commitment not to exclude anyone. All you really have to do is allow anyone to access the network anonymously. If you're worried about government backtracking on this, well then it can be written into law which makes it harder for politicians to change, the same way the BBC charter is written into law.
They'd just have to be a little more careful about how they did it than a local government would be. They'd have to make sure that the really dense areas only got a taste of it, not enough to not need to subscribe. Keep some of the people happy, so that the the ones that are complaining and motivated can't get a big enough group together to affect change. If a city feels entirely neglected in some way, it's much easier for them to take action than if just some of the people are "suffering".
There's also the whole, the first hit is free mentality. After I got some broadband use at a friend's house, you can be damn sure I would not shut up to my parents about how much we needed a faster connection. There are plenty of people who don't understand that having broadband doesn't just make your email go faster, it can really change how you're able to use the internet in more fundamental ways.
Abstracting things another way, Google gives away a hell of a lot of services for free, yet they're finding ways to make money. Their share price is still vastly overvalued, but they are making money, they're just being a little bit more imaginative with their business plans.
In New Orleans's case, the city can afford this whole thing because a lot of the equipment has been donated. Legally, I think they're justifying it easily because the city is still under a state of emergency or something. Ethically, I see no real problem with New Orleans or any other municipality doing this, because I believe that there can be a real benefit from it, both economically, and in a quality-of-life sense. Similar to roads and fire hydrants and stuff.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Maybe I'm just completely "out of the loop" so to speak, but I really can't understand how all these cities can A) justify and B) afford to offer all this free wireless internet access.
In my city at least (we have had free 802.11g WiFi over large swaths of the city for two years now, and they are constantly expanding it), it is easy to justify.
As well, the city leases out the high speed fibre ring to companies, since they can do it cheaper than the local ISPs in many situations. Last I heard, the city was very well into the black on the whole project, it is far from a money-losing thing.
Being devil's advocate here ... how is it allowable for a city government to basically destroy the market for local Internet access? I mean, aren't the people who say it's illegal government competition basically correct? It does take away any motive to pay for Internet access, right?
Wrong. No company is going to depend on public WiFi for it's internet backbone. For one, performance is suceptible to the weather, and also the number of people on the local node. As well, it is inherently not as secure as a landline (since the access is free and public, there is no WEP involved). Also, anyone who is security conscious would not use it even for their day-to-day use.
But it is great for surfing the web, or doing company business over a VPN. Personally, I love it. And since it actually *makes* the city money, thus lowering my tax burden, I love it even more.