Philadelphia Considering Municipal Wi-Fi 223
sebFlyte writes "The row over Muni Wi-Fi continues as cities and other municipal authorities consider building massive Wi-Fi networks to give lots of people low-cost wireless net access. CNET is running an article written by the CIO for the city of Philadelphia, explaining why she thinks it's time to break the telcos de-facto monopoly and for public agencies to start offering public services." We have previous covered Taipei's efforts along these lines to create a for-pay service
(Yay) - Free ...... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What To Look Forward To? (Score:5, Funny)
Why stop there? If we can get such great service from the government on this, why not other services? Taxpayer-funded ice cream for the disadvantaged! Subsidized soda machines for people that don't carry loose change! Free spice channel for people too embarrased to call up and order the service themselves! Government ass-wiping for really, really lazy people!
It doesn't matter if this is a good service or not. This isn't food or housing. This is Wi-Fi access for crying out loud. If the government should provide this, then is there anything the government shouldn't provide?
You seem confident it will be a good serve, but even if the service sucks and it turns out to be a huge waste of cash, you'll never get rid of it once it's in place. Rotten businesses go out of business, but rotten government programs just eat more tax money.
I know in the end you people will win. Its human nature to want to believe we can all live in luxury for free, to get things we have not earned or worked for, and to believe that we can make life wonderful but having the government take money from other people and use it to buy us nice things. A little bit at a time, you will get your way, and get all your "free" things from your government.
For my part, I promise to go kicking and screaming all the way.
(Unless maybe I can get in on some of the free ice cream) [shamusyoung.com]
Re:You've never heard of PGW (Score:2, Funny)