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 According to the Washington Post, 'Bill Oliver, angrily rescinded the offer of the building in a conversation with New Orleans homeland security director Terry Ebbert.'"

Comments

Wow.

[ScaryFroMan]

I mean WOW. That's possibly the coldest, worst thing that I've ever heard a company to do. I mean Sony sucks because of the rootkit, and M$ is the spawn of satan, but never would they do something like that.

They may as well just strangle puppies in front of orphans. I'll never use thier services.

Re:Wow.

[ZachPruckowski]

Unfortunately, there are probably plenty of people who have BellSouth who can't switch away from it because they have no local alternatives. I don't have a landline (well, I do...but I don't know the number to it), but most non-college students need one. And VoIP isn't an option if you don't have highspeed access, even if you can call "normal" phones with it. And you do have highspeed, and its from Bell South, you can't really switch away from them unless you also have cable. A lot of you guys seem to be lucky enough to have broadband internet and multiple phone providers in your area. In some parts of the country, particularly "backwater" parts of the South, you don't have those kind of options.

(I lived 10 of my almost 19 years in such a place, so "backwater" isn't an insult).

Re:Wow.

[Malor]

In the South, it's often cheaper to just switch to 100% cellphone. Bellsouth's 'cheap' plans are on the order of $40/mo with all the taxes and surcharges and crap you have no choice but to take. (Coming from California, I was absolutely astonished at the cost of a phone here.. it was more like $12/mo for the cheapest options there.)

You can often get a cellphone plan for $30/mo, and $50/mo will give you a pile of minutes and free long distance.... and the phone works practically anywhere.

Essentially, they're pricing themselves right out of business, as far as I can see.

In response to Katrina

[ookabooka]

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.

Re:So what am I missing?

[srleffler]

No, they are being jackasses because they are deadly afraid of municipalities implementing their own city-wide wireless internet. Other municipalities have tried to do this, and it scares the phone and cable companies silly, because if this is implemented nobody will need to pay them for internet access. Worse, with VOIP nobody may need to pay for phone service either. Municipal wireless internet equals an entire municipal market lost to the telecomm companies. They do not want this effort in New Orleans to succeed.

That's Crappy

[MHZmaster]

Wait, correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds like not only was Bellsouth planning to donate a damaged building to the city, but now they're rescinding their offer.

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.

Jumping to conclusions?

[mdobossy]

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.

Re:Jumping to conclusions?

[Flashbck]

I'm from New Orleans and Bill Oliver used to be my neighbor. I knew this man for a few years and I do not believe that he would do such a thing. This is probably a case where the "city officials" are bending the truth a bit. Hell, I remember when I was in high school, I accudentally hit Mr. Oliver's car when I was in a rush to get to school. I knocked on his door to tell him about it and he just laughed it off and made some joke about how he had a dent there that he wanted to fix anyway. This supposed angry rescission of the offer is probably a case of Mr. Oliver telling the "city officials" that the building is not ready to be occupied yet and is being spun into something completely different to help int he acceptance of city-wide free WiFi.

I for one hope that the WiFi stays. I'll still pay for my Cox Communications cable modem for the faster speeds at home, but it would be nice to bring my laptop to the park and be able to get an internet connection there.

that's nothing..

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw Duane Ackerman (CEO of BellSouth) kicking a kitten last week.

And the problem is?

[HexaByte]

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?

Re:Money

[buysse]

Most of the cost of deploying something like city-wide wifi is infrastructure -- you need to lay physical wires (glass, usually) to a large number of locations and build a box to put the hardware in, along with supplying power to that box and making it weatherproof (and tamperproof, to a reasonable degree). A Cisco AP is pocket change by comparison to those costs.

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.

Re:So what am I missing?

[fireboy1919]

Another thought is that as soon as it really takes hold in a major US city and it works, city planners the nation over will take note.

And it'll happen again. And again, and again, and again until we don't need cellphone companies, cable companies, or telephone companies. So far it hasn't worked on a massive scale - mostly because it was too much cost for too few to benefit. Its the biggest threat to these companies that there is.

Still, such a violent self-preserving always disturbs me. It's why I work at a small company myself. Too many people all working together mean that there's going to be power at the top. And if power doesn't corrupt, it certainly attacts the corrupted like a moth to flame.

Re:That was a mistake... And perhaps ineffective

[David Hume]

It was not only a mistake from the viewpoint of PR. Bellsouth's withdrawal of its donation may not be legally ineffective. It may still be on the hook to donate the building if the City of New Orleans reasonably and detrimentally relied on Bellsouth's promise. The key concept is promissory estoppel. Promissory estoppel can be used to enforce a charitable gift when the charity (or in this case, the city) relied upon it. One classic example is:

An example of promissory estoppel is where a foreign student declares that she is unable to return to college because she is unable to raise enough money to cover all the costs especially with textbooks costing so much and I agree to provide her with the necessary textbooks if she returns. When she returns, I cannot back off on my gift since she has relied upon it to return. In this case promissory estoppel substitutes for consideration and we have a binding contract.

It would be interesting if BellSouth reaped all of the bad publicity caused by withdrawing its offer, only to have to donate the building anyway.

Re: Scared for nothing.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:BellSouth has been known to suck.

[eh2o]

I swear to God, I'll fly a jet into the BellSouth tower...

Ahem. Might want to post AC next time... ;)

Re:BellSouth has been known to suck.

[woolio]

When I was a BellSouth customer, I did not have any need of long-distance services...

Because I did not select a carrier, they actually charged me a FEE for NOT using a carrier!!!!

Charged if you do, charged if you don't...

Even the basic tax rules of the IRS are a bit more sensible...

Re:Bell$outh

[osobear]

Why are you u$ing a dollar $ign for the letter "s" in company name$? I$ it more $la$hdot-like? I$ it more bad-a$$, a$ it in$ult$ the companie$ them$elve$?

Re:BellSouth has been known to suck.

[SilverspurG]

but orchestrated neglegence like that can't just happen without around 10,000 employees knowing about it.

They may know about it but they don't know what it is. Take any task and divide it into its components. Then separate the authority for each of those components into a different department. Then surround each different department with paperwork which they use to charge for their hours or verify a work order. Then make the intersystem storage and communication of this paperwork a real PITA. 10000 workers see it as business as usual. On any given day you'll probably hear an employee of BellSouth (or any other company) swear something similar to,"This is the absolutely stupidest way to get this done. Why do they make us do this?"

So yes. Orchestrated negligence is used as a business tactic all the time. Anyone on the inside who manages to figure it out is sternly instructed to get back to work, maybe even cited for insubordination.

Re:BellSouth has been known to suck.

[Max Threshold]

Nah, the FBI already has a file on me three feet thick. They've been reading my email for no particular reason since 2000 or earlier, and they know that if I were going to do something, I wouldn't talk about it, before or after. I just like to throw them a bone now and then... Are you reading this, Agent Summerville? I still have your business card. No, I still don't have anything to tell you.

Government budget != political abuse

[karzan]

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.