ISPs derail low-cost city Internet plans

[flashl]

Source: UPI

PHILADELPHIA, March 22 (UPI) -- Philadelphia's plan to give nearly cost-free Internet to the entire city has been derailed as Internet companies withdraw from WiFi deals, a report said.

The city publicized its plan in 2005 to install the country's biggest Wi-Fi system, covering 135 square miles and providing residents, mainly the poor, with Internet service, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Thirteen large cities, including San Francisco, Houston and Chicago, and many smaller ones jumped on board for the new low-cost Internet plan, which has been halted by major Internet provider's decisions to pull out of the deals, citing fears that it would not create revenue.

"All these cities had this hype hangover late last year when EarthLink announced its intentions to pull out. Now that they're all sobered up, they're trying to figure out if it's still possible to capture the dream of providing affordable and high-speed access to all residents," said Craig Settles, an independent wireless consultant and author of "Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless."

UPI

Read more: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/03/22/isps_derail_low-cost_city_internet_plans/9984/

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Why deny/suppress communities' efforts to share and provide affordable Internet access if 'we' are concern, as a 'country', about losing 'our' tech edge?

[kirby]

1. Pure greed/lobbyist at work...

Public access should have been made a condition of using/purchasing various spectrum.

Meanwhile other countries have much higher wireless and even broadband penetration than we do. The power of our telco's are outrageous. And the lack of a requirement for treating the 'last mile' as common property has removed competition and allowed consolidation.

[sce56]

2. The internets are bad for the ruling powers, they get around the M$M censorship of the real news n/t

[BumRushDaShow]

3. I live in Philadelphia

and followed this whole thing with "Wireless Philadelphia" as Earthlink started dropping city after city while still promising to finish their work here. The main problem was not taking into consideration the unusual topography of a city and signal strength around buildings, trees, hills, etc. (meaning not having enough transmitters around).

The last I heard, they were something like 70+% completed (my area was still to be completed) before halting and pulling out. The little transmitters are affixed to street lights.

I would think that whatever they have put in place could be taken over by someone else and completed, since alot of the infrastructure is there now. It's a matter of getting past this pesky recession/depression and finding a "profitable" model (for a private company) to maintain it -OR- perhaps seeking out some foundation to finance it, which would take the greed/profit motive out of the equation to allow access to the lower-income areas. Alternately a mixed-partnership of public (foundation)-private could offer across-the-board access.

The one thing that has come in from left field that might make this idea harder and harder to implement is the fact that modern cell phones/smartphones/PDAs can wirelessly access the 'net via their cell providers. The initial argument for wifi in the city imagined people sitting in their homes or out in a park with a laptop surfing the net wirelessly. I even recall driving into work a few times during one of the pilots and seeing a few brave folks along one of the river drives sitting in a lawn chair with a laptop under a street light transmitter at 6:30 am attempting to access the net. But these same people are more often than not, walking down the street doing similar on their blackberries, Centros, or iPhones. Of course providing that access for low-income for their homes or even at community centers, etc., was and still is critical. But the competition with the cell providers is going to need to be resolved, particularly since many low-income residents do have cell phones using a pre-paid model and that might dissuade them having yet another bill. Perhaps some sort of partnering with the cell providers using pre-paid for home 'net access, is something to look at.

[Trillo]

4. Class Warfare.

Because only people who can "afford" the Internet, should have access to it(?). It's not a message I believe, but that's the message I get from this action. It's another small part of Class Warfare.

Poor. must. not. be. on. Internet. They. are. not. educated. enough. to. be. allowed. to. speak. They. must. not. be. allowed. to. read. and. self. educate.

Poor. must. remain. poor.

/satire

[Mika]

5. Its been the history of the US all along. n/t

[Arctic Dave]

6. Perhaps they were going to use it to spy on us.

Now that the public has been found out what the telcos were doing they no longer want to be involved with the gov't plan. Free internet access=unlimited access to your computer.

[Trillo]

8. Only if it has wireless built-in.

Even then, one could probably drop the drivers for the sub-system, or otherwise undermine them. Course that's a little technical for some users.

I'm not convinced all the Wi-Fi signals, including cell phone spectrum, is healthy for any of us. There was that brain cancer cordless phone study, the recent one, that found that yes, there is a correlation if the study period is in the >10years range.

So, I guess WIFI is somewhat of a mixed bag.

[kristopher]

7. The new 700 bandwidth technology they just auctioned off

Doesn't that provide platform that is a lot cheaper to deploy?

Waiting for this bandwidth has been holding the US hispeed effort back for years. No one wanted to spend the money for infrstructure that was preordained to having a short half life.

[Kolesar]

9. Sounds interesting. Is that the bandwidth from old, analog tv?

And hence should be available in about one year??

[kirby]

10. Except...

Verizon and AT&T were the winners.

AT&T was the largest winner gobbling up most of the spectrum and there are no requirements for open access.

Verizon, at Google's urging, has to commit to allow devices that arent sold directly through Verizon on 'their' airwaves, but I wont hold my breath on that. I would never trust Verizon. I'm sure their will be some argument of how certain innovative, but non-verizon devices, are crippling their network.

Most likely the only 'innovative' thing to come out of this will be the ability to watch commercial television on your cell phone at some expensive rate.

[2Design]

11. Corporations 1 Regular people 0 - we lost another game they have all the marbles n/t

[aasleka]

12. It's coming, nothing can stop it.

Google spending money on backbone being dropped in the ocean tells me it wants to be in the game to stay, they won't be cut out and I think they have a history of making ad revenue work in ways others didn't think about. Cities will jump on board and even pay for the infrastructure with government grants that allow them to upgrade their communications for Public Works, Police and Fire. The infrastructure will be paid by services the city already provides but has not been adequately adressed the advance of technology to make services more efficient.

The advance of data transmission combined with new revenue streams and the next generation of hardware being put in place all at the same time that a major infrastructure repair that will be taking place not to mention the new regs coming from the EPA all suggest that the public will have an opportunity if they are smart to combine many problems under one roof.

[Elidor]

13. This happened in my town several years back

We had a city councilman whose holy grail was cheap cable and internet for everyone. If more people had known at the time, he might have gotten somewhere, but he didn't have the support to push it through, much to the relief of those thieving bastards at Charter, among others.

People sometimes ask what I have against capitalism. It's this: it cannot co-exist with progressive communities. Capitalism is US residents paying up to twice the cost of drugs sold elsewhere. It's HMO's charging more than the mortgage on your house to cover your family, but you still pay thousands of dollars a year beyond that for basic care. It's subcontractors in Iraq, under FEMA, at the Pentagon, looting the treasury in return for criminally unsafe goods and services rendered most fraudulently.

The public sphere needs to kept free of this rank parasitism. We need to weed out extortionism in the garden of community. The good of the community must be distinguished from the good of the company. All too often, businesses scream and wring their hands and local chambers of commerce and their allies in municipal government roll over and give the bastards whatever they want, free land, buildings, tax subsidies, cheap labor, etcetera. It's made into a one-way street, and the companies suck it all up, but the community gets precious little in return, just a few menial jobs and a few nice press releases in the local business-friendly rag.

[ContraBass Black]

14. If it doesn't make them money, why would they do it?

They have no incentive.

[alarimer]

15. Corpus Christi spent millions on a Wi-Fi system.

Then sold it to Earthlink after they passed a law saying cities could not provide low-cost wifi to its citizens because it competes (unfairly according to the corporate stooges in the Lege) with commercial enterprises. So they sold it to Earthlink who since has gone belly-up.