San Francisco Free Wi-Fi Plan Fails

Reader r writes with news from San Francisco that Earthlink has backed out of contract negotiations to blanket the city with free Wi-Fi, citing money problems. Seems like only yesterday that Chicago's Wi-Fi deal fell apart for much the same reason. Quoting: "The contract, which was three years in the making, had run into snags with the Board of Supervisors, but ultimately it was undone when Atlanta-based EarthLink announced Tuesday that it no longer believed providing citywide Wi-Fi was economically viable for the company... EarthLink spokesman Jerry Grasso said that EarthLink was willing to work with San Francisco but had decided that it 'was not willing to work in the business model where EarthLink fronts all the money to build, own and operate the network.'"

Comments

Wifi monopolies

[Colin Smith]

Really, why are authorities even promising monopoly wifi to companies anyway?

Re:Wifi monopolies

[vthokie69]

I'm not quite sure where people get this notion that local government run internet access is anti-competitive. If the people of a locality do not like their choices or those choices are too expensive or limited, it's certainly within their rights to build out their own wi-fi network. If anything, it would put competitive pressure on traditional internet service providers. What's anti-competitive are various state laws that prohibit local governments from rolling out community wi-fi. As far as censorship goes, if you're worried about that then there's nothing stopping you from subscribing to a traditional isp. That's the power of having choice.

Re:Wifi monopolies

[dgatwood]

Free government-run internet is still a lot better than free government-controlled, corporate-run internet. With the latter, which this would have been, the corporation gets to limit traffic as they see fit, then charge money to anybody who wants a data rate better than edge, gets to keep any other corporations out of the city, etc., plus the government can probably insist on censorship. You get the all disadvantages of corporate backing PLUS all the disadvantages of government backing.

What we need is municipal Wi-Fi provided by the government, with the equipment owned by the government, but with a strong, liberal government to keep the censorship at bay. Not seeing it happening anytime soon, though.

In the meantime, let's hope that the corporate-backed "municipal" Wi-Fi folks choose a company more competent than EarthLink. I used to be on a Covad/Earthlink connection, and the Covad side worked fine, but the Earthlink PPPoE servers went up and down several times a day, leaving me with no network connectivity, often for hours at a time. I dumped them and went to straight Covad service, and I've had almost zero downtime in the years since. Earthlink wouldn't know how to run municipal Wi-Fi if Google's founder came and bit them in the @$$, so speaking as a resident of the Bay Area, I'm rather glad to hear that this fell through. Indeed, I can't think of a SINGLE ISP that would be WORSE than Earthlink. I'd rather have the "new" AT&T providing it, even, and that's saying something....

Re:Wifi monopolies

[Arthur B.]

And it's within their right not to fund the local government internet access through taxes. It's illegal though. So you can
- pay the local governement for internet access and use it, or
- pay the local government for internet access and not use it
Whao, that *is* choice!

Re:Wifi monopolies

[The One and Only]

What we need is municipal Wi-Fi provided by the government, with the equipment owned by the government, but with a strong, liberal government to keep the censorship at bay.

That sounds a lot like a benevolent dictatorship. Nice to have, but politically impossible.

Re:Wifi monopolies

[Arthur B.]

Sorry but that's not a "fact of life" that's a fact shove down your throat by power hungry men backed by the full and heavily armed power of the IRS. I'm all for free widespread internet access in cities, but only if it's provided on a voluntary basis ( http://www.fon.com/en/ is a great example ).

Govt provided internet would (among many other bad things) reduce choices. Think of schooling for example, when everyone has to pay for public school regardless of usage, the private schools can only cater to very specific niches (mostly religious and wealthy).

Re:Wifi monopolies

[ultranova]

Govt provided internet would (among many other bad things) reduce choices. Think of schooling for example, when everyone has to pay for public school regardless of usage, the private schools can only cater to very specific niches (mostly religious and wealthy).

And without public schools, only the rich could afford to go to school at all.

I've seen communisim first hand.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been to two Socialist countries, two Communist countries and three Free Republic/Deomcratic countries.

I kiss the soil of the U.S. every time I return.

I've see Communism first hand. Being told "sorry, you don't have water on Tuesdays and Thursdays" is unplesant. Yes, I understand there is a failiure in the infrastructure but it isn't corrected without incentive. People, sadly, acclimate to piss-poor surroundings. One or two generations of that and getting out is difficult.

What does this have to do with Wireless? A lot.

I thought about designing my own 'free' wireless network. The manpower and cost to keep it up and running is obscene. Even with free hardware and ISP service, the cost of making sure it's running 100% is a full time job, if not two.

Without a financial incentive, there is little to be gained. The leaches of society would tear down the system.

While Capitalism has it's flaws, humanity isn't willing to share and play nice. Yet.

Re:I've seen communisim first hand.

[hxnwix]

You are quite right - public ownership of essential utilities leads to nothing but problems. In California, for example, the privatization of electric utilities resulted in nothing but rainbows and ponies. And it is a good idea for San Fransisco to sell the Golden Gate Bridge to Goldman Sachs, because private companies can do no wrong.

Here's a thought: perhaps the USSR's problems were not entirely caused by who owned what.

Free?!

[TonyXL]

It's only free until you get your pay stub.

Wi-max?

[Jeremi]

It sounds like Wi-Max will be available soon, and will be able to provide wide-area coverage without requiring nearly as many base stations. Perhaps this is one reason why companies are suddenly deciding that big Wi-fi projects are a bad idea... because after investing $$$$ on thousands of Wi-fi stations, the competition will next year be able to take their customers away by installing just a few dozen Wi-max stations?