ISPs Losing Interest In Citywide Wireless Coverage

The New York Times is running a story about how hope is fading for the implementation of municipal wireless access in cities across the US. Major cities and small towns alike are finding that ISPs are withdrawing from such plans due to the low profitability of ventures that are similar to Philadelphia's incomplete network. We've previously discussed Chicago's and San Francisco's wireless status, and also some of the stumbling blocks other cities have faced. From the Times: "In Tempe, Ariz., and Portland, Ore., for example, hundreds of subscribers have found themselves suddenly without service as providers have cut their losses and either abandoned their networks or stopped expanding capacity. EarthLink announced on Feb. 7 that 'the operations of the municipal Wi-Fi assets were no longer consistent with the company's strategic direction.' Philadelphia officials say they are not sure when or if the promised network will now be completed."

Comments

Re:Profits

[vertinox]

Parent was modded as funny, but its the one of the main reasons Tesla's wireless power transmission never got serious funding and interest by investors.

From Wikipedia

However, in 1903, when the tower structure was near completion, it was still not yet functional due to last-minute design changes. Tesla intended for the tower to demonstrate how the ionosphere could be used to provide free electricity to everyone without the need for power lines. Morgan, who could not foresee any financial gain from providing free electricity to everyone, balked. Construction costs eventually exceeded the money provided by Morgan, and additional financiers were reluctant to come forward.

And the fact that WWI broke out didn't help either...

Even if he could get it working on a mass scale, there was no way to tell if people were using it for free or how much they were using. I suppose in retrospect they could have put a meter on the other side of the customer power receiver, but the way Tesla envision is that the devices would be independent so putting a meter on each and every light bulb would be impractical.

With wireless, they can at least track mac addresses and force a radius login, but it still has similar problems so its easy to see why businesses are reluctant to move forward with it.

Re:TANSTAAFL - where muni access makes sense

[vertinox]

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

True, but think of it as "city trash pickup". Of course, a city could just require by law everyone to take their own trash to the landfill like some rural areas, but if it was deemed important enough they could instead have a referendum to raise a tax (sales, property, or income) to pay for weekly trash pickup.

Now some city dwellers may balk at the idea because they can just take the trash to the landfill themselves and save the tax money, but most cities don't work like that so their only recourse is to fight the referendum or city hall legislation. If it passes, the trash pickup truck comes once and week and picks up garbage on the sidewalk regardless of who put it there (could be someone out of town though probaly illegal if they did it regularly) and pick up any amount (some cities have limits of what they pick up but they generally don't go out and report if you left one bag or 5) and they still come by your street even if you didn't put out a bag.

The same thing with Wifi, if a city deems it a reasonable service they can levy a tax and put it to a referendum. If the citizens don't like it they can vote against it, but if it passes then its just like garbage pickup. Not everyone will use it like everyone else (if at all... personally some weeks I'm hard pressed to even put a single trash bag out but I still pay the city tax for trash pickup) and its also going towards out of towners coming into the city and throwing their cups into public trash cans.

So no... Its not a free lunch, but its fine if a city wants a service paid for by tax. You don't see Waste Management complaining that the government holds a monopoly on trash pickup services. Now the service is most likely subcontracted out to the lowest bidder, but in effect it is a monopoly for that city.

The problem with most of these city ones like the Earthlink one in Philadelphia is that they are treating it and expecting income like a regular ISP which intends to make a profit.

It would have been better if Philadelphia had a referendum to use some of the city wage tax to go for free wifi and then explained to Earthlink how much of the taxes they would get rather than expected income from monthly services from individuals who may or may not cancel their account next month.