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New Report On Municipal Wireless
PublicNet SF Coalition introduces us to a new report by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance called "Localizing the Internet: Five Ways Public Ownership Solves the U.S. Broadband Problem." It makes a strong case for municipal ownership of new wireless and fiber-optic networks. The history shows that there is a need for more aggressive public involvement in broadband deployment, and the affordability of wireless is a great opportunity for this.
Get back to me when that's working out for you buddy. I can count the number of fabulous free-internet-for-everybody on .... no fingers of one hand.
Sure it's fundamentally flawed.
Say someone says "I want free telephones for everyone, cause my Aunt Mildred might need to call 911, and I want her to be able to do that with guaranteed City service!"
So everyone dutifully pays their taxes and gets a phone system installed. Designed by committees and politicians, and run by the same type of guys who fill the potholes in your streets. Yeah, when it works, it'll probably work okay. However, oh we didn't account for what happens when someone's 12-year old kid wants to use that phone 24x7 to talk to their friends in Sweden, we'll have to have more money to address that problem. Yeah, so your idea is you want to run a Grand Experiment, with vague promises that it'll be cheaper and better go right ahead.
As I said, I'll be happy to read some of those success stories. I think we've had enough years by now where someone could have applied this idea. After all, the telephone has been around a long time, couldn't we apply it to a "simple" technology like that to get out feet wet? What makes people think computer networks are somehow special or different than other telecommunications networks?
My point is for years we've been treated to theories about how somebody's got a Big Idea on how to run telecomm networks in the public benefit and do it better and cheaper. I simply don't buy it, that the EVIL FORCES have stopped them every time. There should be even one shining success somewhere we could point to, you know some medium or larger city that pulled off an idea like this. So why haven't we? Answer that if you can.