Dayton, Ohio: Free City-Wide WiFi

_Bunny writes "The City of Dayton, Ohio announced a plan to make all of downtown a WiFi hotspot - and as of last week, the network is live. This makes Dayton the first Ohio city to offer free WiFi access. Approximately one square mile of downtown is now live, including Fifth Third Field, the Oregon District, Webster Station and RiverScape. The WiFi project is a public/private partnership not funded by taxpayers, and comes at no charge to the end user." (According to the linked story at WHIO-TV, the city is actually paying about $5,000 per year, with advertisers picking up the rest of the tab.)

City Wide?

[Nasa Rosebuds]

I don't know what you mean by city-wide, but Dayton [google.com] is a big place and I doubt "within a 1-mile radius of downtown" really covers it all. Still, this is cool.

Hopefully...

[jessecurry]

...this will become a model for other cities. I know how valuable my WiFi connection on campus and in my neighborhood has become. I would love to be able to sit downtown and know that I have internet access available.

Nice, but...

[jargoone]

It's cool that they're doing this, but the problem is, there's not really much reason to go downtown in Dayton. They just built the new ballpark, but other than that, it's really a pretty crappy place.

Advertisers?

[crow]

How do advertisers push their ads to the WiFi users?

Re:City Wide?

[FortKnox]

Cincinnati is planning the same thing, and having a neighbor that already has it running will probably push this city into finishing up. Wish they had it today, cause its beautiful outside!

Government spaces

[Shivetya]

most likely they get to advertise through other means, like stuffing fliers into mailings or hanging their company name on official web pages related to the project. Of course you have lots of little antenna around and the support crews can be branded as well.

Plus being government there are probably some under the table considerations like zoning issues, fees, and similar. Remember a government providing an incentive or discount is not spending any taxpayer money. That is similar to what Washington does by labeling as a program spending cut the simple fact of not increasing the allocation of funds to it.

Re:Legal Issues...

[timeOday]

Is the city liable when drug dealers do business in a park?

Not the smartest idea this...

[suitepotato]

...letting the government provide your electronic information access is like letting the tax authorities be your bank and accountant. What was that phrase I was looking for..? Oh yes, It's the fox guarding the henhouse.

AFAIC, it's for nothing unless you use secure tunnels and proxies to keep them from snooping on you. No, this isn't tinfoil hate time. This is plain old reality. I love my country, but I fear my government as I should. I can't see the same dingbats who can't get water fountains in the parks fixed within five years as being trustworthy with a cordless phone never mind my Internet access. No thanks.

Re:Not the smartest idea this...

[imsabbel]

Yeah, right.
Just like it is so stupid to let the government defend you, make laws, build streets, educate children...
its the FUCKING job of a government to provide basic sevices to the people. And now internet access is one of those

Re:History in the making

[bob670]

But if the job market keeps retracting like it has I won't be here much longer, can't afford to stay. And Cleveland is such a mess now and there seems to be no hope of it turning around yet a third time. Last one out of town shut out the lights...

Re:Legal Issues...

[timtwobuck]

The city is providing a service, something that doesn't exist freely.

In your analogy to the park, if the town didn't provide the park, then they would go into the street, or if the street wasn't there then they would go into the woods. So them providing "space" is not something they can avoid.

Now if the city was providing a large dome, under which there was no surveillance, no police, and nobody checking who goes in and out, and crimes are committed there, then yes, I would say they are liable for being negligent.

Re:Hopefully...

[funk_doc]

I'm surprised that anyone here at /. would want municipal WiFi, other than the ever eluding Free Lunch. Lets take a look at some of the problems that will arise:

Static IP and Port Forwarding. I'm sure that many of you forward ports through your router/firewall for certain applications (http, ftp...). I can guarantee that the municipality will not support this feature, and it would be impossible to get a static ip. Once the municipality monopolizes the market, there will be no competition from the private sector. You can't compete with free. While private companies in other areas offer new features, lower price and more bandwidth (they have to compete, remember) you will be stuck paying high prices (taxes) for a slow connection. While the idea of other people who don't use the internet paying for your BitTorrent downloads seems like a great idea, it will cost you more in the long run.

Censorship. Once this municipality has the power to decide what you can and can't view on the internet, do you really think that it would never be abused. Some religious group will donate large amounts of money to a campaign, and the politician will have to repay that group with censorship legislation.

Internet access may seem high right now, and it is. Competition is real, prices have and will continue to go down as features are being added. My Comcast connection used to cost $59/mo, now I have more bandwidth and it's only $20/mo. Government is never as efficient as the private sector, it will cost everyone much more to let the government supply WiFi rather than a private company. Also, when was the last time you heard of a government program living up to it's promise? Do you think that this would be any different?

been there, done that

[Anonymous Coward]

even though in most categories, louisiana is behind, baton rouge has had wireless downtown and at LSU for at least a couple years. these 2 wireless networks combined cover 2 or 3 square miles...and yes, access is free to both. many municipalities are covering areas with large amounts of wifi.

what we need to watch out for is bills in many states that are aimed at barring municipalities from becoming isp's.

Re:City Wide?

[er_head66]

No, actually you are wrong. This is a great idea. For an extremely minimal fee ($5000), they are providing a useful service to the city centre: free connection for office workers, people in transit and local businesses. This is exactly the direction I think wireless internet should be taking, the idea of blanketing regions with free internet and then seeing if a 'killer app' sprouts up that can take advantage of it. When more cities implement systems like this, hardware developers will feel more comfortable included wifi in PDAs and gadgets, sercure with the knowledge that there is actual network that users can take advantage of. Think GPS with Wifi that will give you a local map. Think VOIP cell phones. Think about the whole city toting OQOs and being mobile.

In this case, I think it is very smart on behalf of the city to be providing this service and more cities should think about implementing similar plans.

How free is it?

[wlvdc]

"... The WiFi project is a public/private partnership not funded by taxpayers, and comes at no charge to the end user."

How can something be publicly funded without tax payers money? And than the cost of the decision making process of the council, admin, p.r. etc.

"(According to the linked story at WHIO-TV, the city is actually paying about $5,000 per year, with advertisers picking up the rest of the tab.)"

How do advertisers make money? Do users have to accept ads to enjoy a 'free' service? How free is it? Can I use VOIP? Can I do anything I like?

In the statement of the city of Dayton it reads: "We also believe offering this type of exciting, pioneering service will go a long way toward helping Dayton attract that 'creative class' of people who will help fuel our community's future success."

Not sure if WiFi can provide sufficient bandwidth for such ambitions...

Re:City Wide?

[gurps_npc]

You got stuff backwards there.

The cost is minimal not great, and the added value is HUGE.

The cost is like 5,000/year - which seems like a lot only to the people that have no idea what a city spends. 5,000/year is nothing to a city. Far less than how much it pays people to clean up a park's statues.

This however is a HUGE quality of life issue - it makes the city very attractive to a lot of people, grants internet access to some people that could not afford it. Many people can afford $500 one time payment for a crappy computer +$100 more for a wifi card, but not afford the $1,200 + a year reasonable internet access can cost.

Re:Hopefully...

[baudilus]

While your arguments have merit, you would do well to take a look at who is using the internet these days. The majority of users do not care about port forwarding, static IPs, and censorship. They just want to be able to read the news and do a little browsing. This will appeal GREATLY to the casual internet user, who browses very little, but doesn't want to pay for such little usage.

And by the way...

...many of you forward ports through your router/firewall for certain applications (http, ftp...). I can guarantee that the municipality will not support this feature...

Understand what port forwarding is, it wouldn't require any explicit "support" from a vendor, outside of having at least one incoming port open. And even if they did close ALL incoming ports, anyone that cares this can just pay for their access.

And contrary to what you allude to in your first sentence, there are a lot of slashdot readers that wouldn't care. Heck, some of them are just casual browsers...

Re:City Wide?

[BigolFatty]

Don't be so down on Dayton. Sure this won't revitalize downtown or anything, but its a step. I'll bet the city will make more than 5k/month in sales taxes by people connecting at a coffee shop in the Oregon District or watching the Dragons at 5/3rd buying $5.50 beers. Dayton needs wi-fi users downtown to balance out the thugs. http://www.whiotv.com/news/4202035/detail.html [whiotv.com]

Re:Too bad Dayton's dead

[Anonymous Coward]

You haven't been downtown lately it would seem. Afte r the completion of Fifth Third Field,the new Performing Arts Center, and Riverside downtown Dayton has definetly been on an upswing the last couple of years. Back in 1999 when I first started going to school there it was trashy and sketchy, but by the time I graduated it was a pleasure to go down there. It's easy to take a shot at an old midwestern city of industry, but your lack of recent experience and stereotyping is disgusting.

Re:That's nice, but the plans are just Pipe Dreams

[General Alcazar]

If people vote to force themselves to give money to corporations, rather than become more efficient and save money for the community, then they are more stupid than can be believed.

Re:History in the making

[Jonny_eh]

What about Cedar Point? It's by far the coolest roller coaster park in North America (or even the world).

But... I guess you don't have to LIVE in Ohio to visit the park, so nevermind!

Re:That's nice, but the plans are just Pipe Dreams

[justin12345]

No offense, but I really get annoyed with people who expunge this sort of reductionist view of the democratic process.

It would be one thing to make the statement you made if there was a referendum on the issue; but in reality the decision is being made be the legislature. A legislature who is being heavily lobbied by the telecommunications (mostly Verizon) companies to block public WiFi. "People" don't really have a say except perhaps to not reelect their representative, something I seriously doubt their representative is sweating over considering not a large enough segment of the population even knows what WiFi is.

Lets say you are on the state legislature of Pennsylvania. On one hand there is a non-profit group trying to WiFi Phily. On the other is Verizon with enough money and power to do whatever they want with your career for good or ill, and they don't like the idea. You are serving on the state legislature, not a position that affords you much power, job security, or prestige.

Having public WiFi in Phily might be good for you, the project might get enough attention that everyone involved comes out looking so good that Verizon isn't a problem. But thats a big "might". Are you going to take that risk?

Phily is not a wealthy city. Most of it is sprawling ghetto. Many of the residents do not own computers and have never even heard of WiFi. The ones that have heard of it can mostly afford to pay for it. You aren't going to get too many votes for supporting the Non-profit from the city itself.

The only way this is going to turn into a substantial amount of votes for you is if the project becomes a media circus. For that to happen it has to be sold as a bill that will make Philadelphia a "city of the future" or it has to be sold as you going toe to toe with big bad Verizon. The city of the future thing is good but the Verizon thing is better, but carries significant risk to you.

It comes down to whether "you" in the Pennsylvania legislature think its a good idea to take on Verizon. You might, but even if you do its going to take some balls.

Last I heard the PA legislature does have a set, kinda. From what I read the Phily WiFi project is going to be allowed to move forward, though similar efforts elsewhere in the state are going to be banned. Its not exactly a great precedent for public WiFi, and similar debates are being held all over the country. Ultimately most of the decisions are going to be made by the politicians involved and the will of the people will not be their primary concern.