OT: (is this OT?) ["Tempe ... isn't alone"] www.computerworld.com on municipal wifi woes

[Craig White]

On Mon, 2008-02-25 at 11:28 -0700, Joshua Zeidner wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:11 AM, Mike Schwartz <schwartz at acm.org> wrote:
> 
> >  [4]   "[...] the municipal Wi-Fi market isn't dying. [...] But, [...]
> >  "taxpayers have lost so far." "
> 
> >  --
> >  Mike Schwartz
> 
>   as I've noted on this list before, Muni Wifi was pronounced dead
> before it was ever even born.  'Taxpayers have lost so far'?  And how
> many complaints do we get on this list about COX service?  The last
> thing the telcos want is a network owned by a regional municipality,
> and the last thing they want is a low-cost budget option for people
> who neither want or need a high-speed connection.
----
Obviously the consumer was the last consideration of Tempe's Muni WiFi
system and that becomes evident by the failure to launch. It's not that
conceptually the idea doesn't work but conceptually, it was lacking from
the word go. The city of Tempe sought only to figure out how to make it
practical for an independent contractor to operate and left the issues
of sales to Tempe residents to that contractor.

Lessig discussed the last mile and considered it from another point of
view, one that municipalities can't seem to get their head around...that
their own investment in the last mile of services made it a much better
community for everyone and Tempe didn't make an investment, they made it
a freebee for themselves so that they could use the wireless free
expecting the citizens to subsidize the costs. It could be said that the
city of Tempe had it backwards.

As for the telcos not wanting competition...of course, and the telcos
must be protected at all costs, right?
----
>   given that at this point we *know* that the government is tapping
> all internet communications, don't you think that various agencies may
> have played a role in making sure ownership of US national network
> infrastructure is centralized?
----
I suppose, but their desire is to support larger, monolithic
corporations.

Craig