Wireless Philadelphia is a project that has been in development for several years, but which will not be finished until late 2006.
It seems such an agreeable proposition to everybody involved - cheap wi-fi for an entire city.
"A citizen will pay a base fee of $10 or $20 depending upon their income status, for access to the network," explained the city's chief information officer, Dianah Neff.
However, the project has stirred up a bees' nest, and has implications for the whole of America.
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AD SPOKESMAN: More and more people are getting it, getting Verizon Online DSL, that is, especially now that it's just $14.95 a month.
TERENCE SMITH: The battle over whether WiFi should be a public utility or a private enterprise and how it should be priced may just be warming up.
Rob
We've had that DSL pricing here in the SF Bay Area with "the new AT&T" (formerly SBC) *without* muni Wi-Fi, so there's really no relevance.
OTOH, Verizon is being forced to compete unfairly with a muni enterprise, which is relevant.
Muni is a bad idea. Internet access isn't an essential public service.
John Navas wrote: Snip..........................................
The original article was about Philadelphia so I fail to see the relevance of "SF Bay Area".Competition is something the corporate world should thrive on instead of throwing tantrums. Since you used a "non Philly ref"
John Navas wrote: Snip..............................................
Internet access isn't an essential public service.
I am glad I live in the UK.
Well, when you're trying to attract business, it's a selling point. It'll happen more and more.
The relevance is that low prices come from competition, not from government interference.
Indeed, but government interference isn't real competition -- the game is fixed.
Hours after New Orleans officials announced Tuesday that they would deploy a city-owned, wireless Internet network in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, regional phone giant BellSouth Corp. withdrew an offer to donate one of its damaged buildings that would have housed new police headquarters, city officials said yesterday. [MORE]
Can't say I blame 'em. Something the city should have thought of in the first place. TANSTAAFL.
So am I. :)
Then why is living in the USA the envy of the world?
I seriously doubt it. The reverse is likely to be true, as such folly adds to the tax rate, and drives away the telecom services that businesses want.
It isn't, the wave of immigration in the US is coming from the developing world, not the developed world, all developed countries have people 'lined up' at the border to get in. What do you think the recent riots in France were about, immigrants from the developing world not happy with the way they are treated. Not trying to debate the right or wrong of their claim, just pointing out that everyone has immigration from the developing world. The US is not the magnet it once was. Our standard of livving is well down the list of developed countries, our life expectancy is lower, etc, etc.
But to specificallly address your point. Consider a muni wifi network, now on the cheap traffic signals can be controled to speed fire and emergency services thru town, easy quick access for police to run checks on vehicles etc. The benefits to local government of a muni wireless network are boundless. Free/cheap internet into the city's schools, access to that school network from home, regardless of the ability to shell out $50 a month for high speed internet (I don't live in SF, I live in the rest of America and internet isn't cheap out here). Businesses cashing in on taxpayer funded research is fine (DARPA Net) and more power to them, but government should be allowed to take advantage of government funded research and developments for the public good. That isn't commmunism, that is just taking care of the common wealth. Remember the air waves belong to us all, we just allow thru government others to have exclusive access to some. Al Gore may not have invented the Internet, but the taxpayer sure funded the invention, why should he be allowed to take advantage of the technology he paid for?
fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.
This is exactly why rural areas around the country are concerned about being left behind, lack of good internet in their area. This wanders from the muni network idea a bit, but you are right Internet is an essentail service in today's world, don't have it, watch your community wither and die.
fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.
In article , John Navas wrote:
John the old telecom model is dead anyway. VOIP has killed it. The migration away from the old model while just beginning is taking off. Why do you think the traditional Bells are so worried about this sort of thing. They know it and their share holders know it. What they are doing is trying to stand in the way of inovation as long as they can so they can continue to milk the old dieing cow dry. That is fine, but the rest of us should not be punished because they can't adapt to the new environment. Bellsouth, your cingular partner is the classic example. They have been dragged kicking and screaming into the Internet age. They over priced ISDN in the early 90's, they fought cable in my state offering Internet. They do not have DSL available in their market(s) for $14 a month as you say you get in SF and others in Phili. The senior management at Bellsouth is as hide bound as the management of IBM was in the 1980's. Now maybe BS will wake up like IBM did but I for one don't hold out a lot of hope. One reason why I have dumped my Bellsouth stock. The business model has changed and SBC is not leading the way in that change, they to are being dragged kicking and screaming. Muni wifi is simply an example of their inability to move into the new world. Rather then embrace it and look for ways to exploit it (and there are many ways to assist and profit from a muni wifi) they fight it. Old thinking by old hide bound managements determined to following Ma Bell into the crapper. Never forget they got where they are due to government protection, let them exploit their wires, but let the public exploit the airwaves.
fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.
Unproven...
Says who? Why are so many of my neighbors ex-pat Americans?
Doubt it all you want. Check out "City Net" in Wellington, NZ. It hasn't driven out telecom services, it _has_ attracted business. Tax rates aren't the bugbear you think they are - corporations look at bottom lines and if they can get the services they want for less money after including tax rates, that's fine by them. Canada has higher taxes than the US. Business flows in both directions. You don't see a huge flood of industry leaving the country just because of the tax rates.
Actually proven overwhelmingly.
It's not free/cheap, and someone has to pay for it.
High speed Internet isn't needed to access school from home -- dialup works just fine.
This is service, not R&D.
On the contrary (as I've explained).
How is that relevant? Wi-Fi is open to everyone.
That's not what he said (not that it matters in this context).
We can all do so now -- both the Internet and wireless are readily and cheaply available to everyone -- as a result of competition, not government intervention.
Telecommunications is much, much more than POTS/PSTN.
They're worried about government intervention, not competition.
Government interference isn't any sort of innovation.
SBC is actually doing quite well.
You ae limiting the list to those things, once it is there, the imagination kicks in. In 1994, most of us thought the web would be like Time's Pathfinder, oh how we under estimated. Trash trucks monitored, traffic flow monitored. There aren't better ways to do these things in smaller cities. You should get out to the heartland sometime John. The country isn't like the Bay area, there is a whole big world out there and not all of it is close to the high tech areas of the Sillycon Valley.
Who do you think the government is, take a look in the mirror. In smaller towns we not only know the mayor, we went to school with him and our kids play with the town councils kids. We are particularly local government. My state house member lives in the next block from me. The Junior US Senator's from my state's little borther and I used to paly poker together in college. In smaller places we actually know these people and they in fact are us.
Quite right, and nothing wrong with taxes buying a useful service and piggy backing on cheaply provided wireless.
Spoken like someone who has not had the kids sent home with assignments to look things up on the web. A lot of parents will disagree with you on that one. But hey if dial-up works for you, more power to you (oops you aren't on dial up I see, oh well)
Servvice is using the products of the R&D, surprising how narrow and small your world seems to be in reality. You need to broaden your horizons, get out more...
You haven't explained as your examples in previous poists actually suggest you have little understanding of communism in the first place, you just toss out the term in knee jerk ask. The commons are precisely an area where government should be involved making sure ALL are allowed to take advantage instead of the elite few.
Except government according to your theory.
The point is, it is decidely NOT cheap.
-- as a result of competition, not government
Without government interevention, there would be no Internet.
fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.
What compition in the first place, you have two players where I live for Internet access, BellSouth and Charter (Paul Allen's cable company). That is it. There are those who try to lease bandwidth from BS and resell it, but they have to scramble like crazy to work around the obsticles BS puts up to weaken their postion as resellers. Now if there were REAL compition, that would be one thing, but the phone company and the cable company are shielded (by government) from real compition. Can't just willy nilly string wire and put up new poles in my state. So at best you have to buy bandwidth from the monopolies. The problem BS is trying to head off is compitition they know they can't really compete on a level playing field.
fundamentalism, fundamentally wrong.
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