Reader r writes with news from San Francisco that Earthlink has backed out of contract negotiations to blanket the city with free Wi-Fi, citing money problems. Seems like only yesterday that Chicago's Wi-Fi deal fell apart for much the same reason. Quoting: "The contract, which was three years in the making, had run into snags with the Board of Supervisors, but ultimately it was undone when Atlanta-based EarthLink announced Tuesday that it no longer believed providing citywide Wi-Fi was economically viable for the company... EarthLink spokesman Jerry Grasso said that EarthLink was willing to work with San Francisco but had decided that it 'was not willing to work in the business model where EarthLink fronts all the money to build, own and operate the network.'"
Maybe they thought 'if it takes 3 years to just write the contract, we'll never even get the wireless installed before we're all dead.' That would sure change my outlook on whether or not it would be possible to make money from it.
Of course, if they could break even on this one, the next one they could make a little money (having had experience) and then have a massive rollout where they mass-produce everything and make a killing.
Looks like they were planning on making the money back by charging them $20 for a faster connection, and other cities they've done this in haven't seen enough people signing up for faster internet. It sounds like they've been burned in other cities and had the ability to pull out of this one, so they did.
The blame is entirely upon the Board of Supervisors. SF Mayor Newsom pushed the plan for years as both a way to bring WiFi to the City, and an option for free Internet access to poor residents. The BoS responded by holding things up repeatedly to tack on political BS to take credit for the mayor's plan. Most recently, the board decided to cut Earthlink's contract in half and demand twice the bandwidth, as if they could "fix" things by jacking up numbers. These assholes do this to every project in the City, h
"Really, why are authorities even promising monopoly wifi to companies anyway?
Yeah I never liked the idea of government run internet access. First it is anti-competitive, and second I do not like the government censor^H^H^H^H^H^H providing my access to information.
I'm not quite sure where people get this notion that local government run internet access is anti-competitive. If the people of a locality do not like their choices or those choices are too expensive or limited, it's certainly within their rights to build out their own wi-fi network. If anything, it would put competitive pressure on traditional internet service providers. What's anti-competitive are various state laws that prohibit local governments from rolling out community wi-fi. As far as censorship
And it's within their right not to fund the local government internet access through taxes. It's illegal though. So you can - pay the local governement for internet access and use it, or - pay the local government for internet access and not use it Whao, that *is* choice!
Sorry but that's not a "fact of life" that's a fact shove down your throat by power hungry men backed by the full and heavily armed power of the IRS. I'm all for free widespread internet access in cities, but only if it's provided on a voluntary basis ( http://www.fon.com/en/ [fon.com] is a great example ).
Govt provided internet would (among many other bad things) reduce choices. Think of schooling for example, when everyone has to pay for public school regardless of usage, the private schools can only cater to very specific niches (mostly religious and wealthy).
Govt provided internet would (among many other bad things) reduce choices. Think of schooling for example, when everyone has to pay for public school regardless of usage, the private schools can only cater to very specific niches (mostly religious and wealthy).
And without public schools, only the rich could afford to go to school at all.
"And without public schools, only the rich could afford to go to school at all." No, funds could be tied to individual students as opposed to monolithic government institutions and private entities could compete to attract these students. That model seems to outperform the US model according to OECD metrics.
It seems ironic that countries such as Belgium and France rely on free enterprise and competition to improve the quality of education while the US is locked into a poorly run socialist system that outsp
Free government-run internet is still a lot better than free government-controlled, corporate-run internet. With the latter, which this would have been, the corporation gets to limit traffic as they see fit, then charge money to anybody who wants a data rate better than edge, gets to keep any other corporations out of the city, etc., plus the government can probably insist on censorship. You get the all disadvantages of corporate backing PLUS all the disadvantages of government backing.
What we need is municipal Wi-Fi provided by the government, with the equipment owned by the government, but with a strong, liberal government to keep the censorship at bay.
That sounds a lot like a benevolent dictatorship. Nice to have, but politically impossible.
For cable TV, it's a corrupt deal. The cable company pays for exclusivity by collecting a lot of taxes from their subscribers. They funnel this money into the city's coffers to be spent on goodies (essentially vote-buying for the city council).
City councils should cut those taxes and allow cable companies to compete, offering subscribers better TV service at lower prices. But people see the new municipal goodies and credit their city councilman then they blame the cable company for the size of the bill.
The deal in Houston to blanket the area with wi-fi [chron.com] has also gone up on the blocks, though Mayor Bill White has wrung a $5mil payment from Earthlink. I'm guessing this one isn't going to go ahead either.
I wonder if this will affect Philadelphia also. We've been receiving advertisements in the mail announcing Earthlink as Philly's citywide wi-fi provider, but with Chicago and San Fran now stopped, and San Fran not seen as profitable, I find it hard to imagine that the Philadelphia city area will be as viable.
Last year Earthlink rolled out wi-fi in the city of Anaheim with much (well, a bit of) local fanfare. I was leasing a small office for myself for part-time use in Anaheim and it sounded like a pretty good deal, esp. compared to what AT&T was offering for a small business package (which was basically the poorest home broadband package at 3x the price.)
I signed up on the year-contract to get the best rate. Service was very spotty. Aggravating at times, but generally ok for my purposes since I was using my access now and then to check email and to research any questions that came up in the course of my work. Most my work was being done offline.
What really turned me off the service is that Earthlink offered no email support -- you had to call their support line (off-shored) and wait on hold for an indeterminate amount of time to get simple questions answered. Also, I was never able to pick up a signal from my laptop's wireless card. I needed to be cabled into their ugly little wireless modem. Even from the Starbucks at the epicenter of the coverage area (across the street from City Hall), I couldn't get a signal on my wireless card directly.
I had a suspicion that the service was going to be a colossal failure. I canceled just last week as soon as my year was up. Hadn't even used it the last three months I paid for it. Interesting now to see these agreements crumbling left and right. I get the impression that it's much harder to deploy reliable city-wide wireless service than it looks on paper. (I saw crews installing the little wireless transponders on lampposts across the city -- how much has to be put in maintaining these things? Bird shit a factor?)
And with the limited initial rollout area, I always wondered how economically viable it was going to be. It was supposed to be citywide by around this time, but even then I question how many people are going to sign up for this. Finally, I suspect it's much less viable for the high-demand media-rich content people are now coming to expect online.
It's too bad because the failure of wi-fi just reinforces the cable/telecom strangehold over broadband service. Is wi-fi actually succeeding anywhere?
Good thing Earthlink was not picked to handle the wifi for Minneapolis. Minneapolis seems to be fairly functional, though still not finished there are a bunch using it that are generally satisfied from what I understand.
by Anonymous Coward
on Thursday August 30 2007, @12:20PM (#20413627)
I've been to two Socialist countries, two Communist countries and three Free Republic/Deomcratic countries.
I kiss the soil of the U.S. every time I return.
I've see Communism first hand. Being told "sorry, you don't have water on Tuesdays and Thursdays" is unplesant. Yes, I understand there is a failiure in the infrastructure but it isn't corrected without incentive. People, sadly, acclimate to piss-poor surroundings. One or two generations of that and getting out is difficult.
What does this have to do with Wireless? A lot.
I thought about designing my own 'free' wireless network. The manpower and cost to keep it up and running is obscene. Even with free hardware and ISP service, the cost of making sure it's running 100% is a full time job, if not two.
Without a financial incentive, there is little to be gained. The leaches of society would tear down the system.
While Capitalism has it's flaws, humanity isn't willing to share and play nice. Yet.
You are quite right - public ownership of essential utilities leads to nothing but problems. In California, for example, the privatization of electric utilities resulted in nothing but rainbows and ponies. And it is a good idea for San Fransisco to sell the Golden Gate Bridge to Goldman Sachs, because private companies can do no wrong.
Here's a thought: perhaps the USSR's problems were not entirely caused by who owned what.
Parent: Free?! It's only free until you get your pay stub.
FTFS: EarthLink spokesman Jerry Grasso said that EarthLink was willing to work with San Francisco but had decided that it 'was not willing to work in the business model where EarthLink fronts all the money to build, own and operate the network.'
Earthlink's website [feather.net]: No financial commitment by the City, taxpayer burden, or risk for the design, deployment, operation, maintenance or support of the network
Nothing is free in this world. If a solid majority of people feel that a service should be universal then it should be provided in a universal manner. People must then pay for it, either through a special levy or through their taxes or though an additional fee on their regular bill. If a service is to be provided in a universal manner and it's cost is now shared by all people, it is incumbent on government to ensure that it's delivery is carried out in the most timely, reliable, and efficient manner poss
Well that and the government gets something out of the deal. They aren't just rolling over to some corporate entity. In exchange for offering up city infastructure, they get guaranteed access to the wireless network. That is worth something.
The city of Minneapolis, MN is going wireless and in some areas is already providing service. The estimated completion date is December 2007. The charge is pretty reasonable too, only $20 or $30 per month depending on access speed.
Many squad cars and firetrucks are already using the wireless technology and a number of cameras are used for survelence in high-crime areas. Since I drive through one of these areas every day, I can tell you the cameras have already made a real difference!
There is hope that with this kind of access, that the city will become a more livable place and that some lower income people will be able to use these services to better themseleves. While I hope that this is true, I'll also take it with a grain of salt and say that I will believe it when I see it.
This service was used for several days after the bridge disaster with very good results. Talk about trial by fire!
Here in Portland, OR MetroFi and the city collaborated to provide a similar service. They haven't quite gotten all of the city done, but the core is covered (and is damned spiffy). Perhaps this opens the door for MetroFi, some other service, or maybe google alone to pick up the ball
Philadelphia now has Earthlink Wireless throughout large portions of the city. All of the downtown is covered (about 20 square miles). The rest of the city coming soon. There has been some role out problems and speed issues but starting at 6$ a month for a citywide service, I expect to see a lot more notebooks in the park once they get the kinks worked out. I'll be signing up as soon as my existing contract is up.
how much do you want to bet comcast and at&t mentioned they might not be so willing to continue to lease those lines to earthlink if this went through? Thanks for the free and open market FCC!
My biggest fear about having these monopolies is that the SCOTUS will rule that you have little to no expectation of privacy from government surveillance if you are using the local muni wifi. If the muni wifi drives out competition in most areas, that would mean that you would end up with a system where the government could run rough shod on civil liberties. The SCOTUS and other courts frequently pull legal arguments out their ass. The best one that comes to mind was Scalia's lowering of requirements on poli
My biggest fear about having these monopolies is that the SCOTUS will rule that you have little to no expectation of privacy from government surveillance if you are using the local muni wifi
No, you actually have more privacy if government operates it. Government is subject to various ammendments, but individuals or corporations are not. Also, there are various privacy acts that apply to government but not individuals or corporations.
The best one that comes to mind was Scalia's lowering of requirements on police to read rights because of the "new professionalism among police." He based a ruling on how he feels about the current state of police professionalism.
Scalia lowered nothing. He wrote the dissenting opinion. The court had upheld Miranda.
His argument was not based upon police professionalism: "The Court did not just apply the Constitution when it handed down Miranda, it expanded the Constitution, imposing an immense and antidemocratic prophylactic rule upon Congress and the states. It was an example of raw, judicial power that simply asserted a constitutional right... Miranda should not be preserved simply because it occupies a special place in the public consciousness. There is little harm in admitting that we made a mistake in taking away from people their ability to decide for themselves. By overturning Miranda, we reaffirm for the people the wonderful reality that they govern themselves, as stated in the Tenth Amendment".
Note that by "governing themselves" he does not mean governing themselves well: "Preventing foolish people from incriminating themselves is the only purpose of Miranda, and that is a far cry from what the Fifth Amendment requires in terms of protecting someone from being compelled to incriminate themself. Nor is a lawyer required because the interrogators can do the same as any lawyer can -- tell the suspect they have a right to be silent. The Constitution is not offended by a criminal's commendable qualm of conscience or fortunate fit of stupidity."
Earthlink badly overreached themselves here with two major mistakes - first, deciding to use Tropos equipment to paint an entire city. Most of the money you burn in setting up a wifi installation is in the install and then trying to get everything to work when your planning tools are out of sync with reality (which is almost always). Tropos's mesh equipment is crap, so they've wasted months and burned untold money trying to nail jello to a wall.
Second, trying to blanket an entire city at once is doable, but it's far more practical to grow the network from little seed areas (while keeping future growth in mind) - blanket a six block area of downtown, for instance, and then expand from that. This lets you get everything right for a small area before you apply that to larger areas - it's the way almost all WISP (wireless ISPs) operate and it works fairly well.
I think Earthlink finally realized it wasn't gonna work, which of course makes all the assumptions under which they signed contracts not so great for them.
I live there (here) and there are a lot of great things about the city, but one of them is not the city's ability to deal with infrastructure in any way that makes even the least bit of sense. Progress, such as it is, occurs as if the time dimension in space-time had no earthly relevance. Don't get me started on Muni. But anyway, if people had started putting up antennas, there'd be years of environmental studies about electromagnetic radiation poisoning (and people wondering, is WiFi organic?). That wou
Washtenaw county is home to CmdrTaco (Rob Malda), which has a plan to bring wireless to the whole county [ewashtenaw.org]. It, too, seems to be having problems with financing [mlive.com]. The plan was to have a free service with paid members getting faster access. The second link claims that to be profitable, 5% of the county needs to sign up.
But a good portion of the population (i.e. most of Ann Arbor) can get fairly cheap DSL through AT&T/Speakeasy (okay, maybe Speakeasy isn't so cheap), or most of the county (I think) can get
A better idea might be to sell repeaters (and bandwidth) to businesses at a discount rate, so that they can give their customers free public wi-fi. If the City of Houston chipped in for a few of its parks and libraries, we'd be basically complete, since there are almost no public spaces in America that aren't businesses or government institutions.
It sounds like Wi-Max will be available soon, and will be able to provide wide-area coverage without requiring nearly as many base stations. Perhaps this is one reason why companies are suddenly deciding that big Wi-fi projects are a bad idea... because after investing $$$$ on thousands of Wi-fi stations, the competition will next year be able to take their customers away by installing just a few dozen Wi-max stations?
Our plans for municipal wifi through AT&T just fell through, too. All of these muni-wifi plans biting the dust at just about the same time seems a little suspicious.
The best place I've found to get details on news like this is the blog "Wi-Fi Networking News", by Glenn Fleishmann. http://wifinetnews.com./ [wifinetnews.com.]
Ok, being a Libertarian-leaning individual myself, I'm obviously a little biased. But really, why did anyone think getting local government involved would produce better/more efficient results than we'd see without them? Personally, I think there were more than a few people enamored with a utopian ideal of "free Internet for all!", without considering the reasons it hasn't really happened spontaneously first.
My thinking is, if the *demand* was truly there for wi-fi practically everywhere in a city, you'd al
3 years? (Score:2)
Of course, if they could break even on this one, the next one they could make a little money (having had experience) and then have a massive rollout where they mass-produce everything and make a killing.
Re:3 years? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Most recently, the board decided to cut Earthlink's contract in half and demand twice the bandwidth, as if they could "fix" things by jacking up numbers. These assholes do this to every project in the City, h
Wifi monopolies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah I never liked the idea of government run internet access. First it is anti-competitive, and second I do not like the government censor^H^H^H^H^H^H providing my access to information.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wifi monopolies (Score:5, Insightful)
- pay the local governement for internet access and use it, or
- pay the local government for internet access and not use it
Whao, that *is* choice!
Parent
Re:Wifi monopolies (Score:4, Insightful)
Govt provided internet would (among many other bad things) reduce choices. Think of schooling for example, when everyone has to pay for public school regardless of usage, the private schools can only cater to very specific niches (mostly religious and wealthy).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And without public schools, only the rich could afford to go to school at all.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, funds could be tied to individual students as opposed to monolithic government institutions and private entities could compete to attract these students. That model seems to outperform the US model according to OECD metrics.
It seems ironic that countries such as Belgium and France rely on free enterprise and competition to improve the quality of education while the US is locked into a poorly run socialist system that outsp
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Free government-run internet is still a lot better than free government-controlled, corporate-run internet. With the latter, which this would have been, the corporation gets to limit traffic as they see fit, then charge money to anybody who wants a data rate better than edge, gets to keep any other corporations out of the city, etc., plus the government can probably insist on censorship. You get the all disadvantages of corporate backing PLUS all the disadvantages of government backing.
What we need is m
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That sounds a lot like a benevolent dictatorship. Nice to have, but politically impossible.
Re: (Score:2)
By the same accord, why extend telephone/DSL and cable TV/internet monopolies?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
City councils should cut those taxes and allow cable companies to compete, offering subscribers better TV service at lower prices. But people see the new municipal goodies and credit their city councilman then they blame the cable company for the size of the bill.
Yesterday... (Score:5, Funny)
Because it was?
Ok, so it was reported yesterday, but it happened close enough to be reasonable called "yesterday".
Re:Yesterday... (Score:4, Informative)
Comcast and ATT must be laughing now.
Parent
Delays in St. Louis (Score:2)
Minor problem: The poles are only powered during the night.
Link [dslreports.com]
Rio Rancho, NM (Score:2)
Philadelphia Contract? (Score:3, Interesting)
Earthlink Wi-Fi in Anaheim (Score:4, Interesting)
I signed up on the year-contract to get the best rate. Service was very spotty. Aggravating at times, but generally ok for my purposes since I was using my access now and then to check email and to research any questions that came up in the course of my work. Most my work was being done offline.
What really turned me off the service is that Earthlink offered no email support -- you had to call their support line (off-shored) and wait on hold for an indeterminate amount of time to get simple questions answered. Also, I was never able to pick up a signal from my laptop's wireless card. I needed to be cabled into their ugly little wireless modem. Even from the Starbucks at the epicenter of the coverage area (across the street from City Hall), I couldn't get a signal on my wireless card directly.
I had a suspicion that the service was going to be a colossal failure. I canceled just last week as soon as my year was up. Hadn't even used it the last three months I paid for it. Interesting now to see these agreements crumbling left and right. I get the impression that it's much harder to deploy reliable city-wide wireless service than it looks on paper. (I saw crews installing the little wireless transponders on lampposts across the city -- how much has to be put in maintaining these things? Bird shit a factor?)
And with the limited initial rollout area, I always wondered how economically viable it was going to be. It was supposed to be citywide by around this time, but even then I question how many people are going to sign up for this. Finally, I suspect it's much less viable for the high-demand media-rich content people are now coming to expect online.
It's too bad because the failure of wi-fi just reinforces the cable/telecom strangehold over broadband service. Is wi-fi actually succeeding anywhere?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I've seen communisim first hand. (Score:3, Insightful)
I kiss the soil of the U.S. every time I return.
I've see Communism first hand. Being told "sorry, you don't have water on Tuesdays and Thursdays" is unplesant. Yes, I understand there is a failiure in the infrastructure but it isn't corrected without incentive. People, sadly, acclimate to piss-poor surroundings. One or two generations of that and getting out is difficult.
What does this have to do with Wireless? A lot.
I thought about designing my own 'free' wireless network. The manpower and cost to keep it up and running is obscene. Even with free hardware and ISP service, the cost of making sure it's running 100% is a full time job, if not two.
Without a financial incentive, there is little to be gained. The leaches of society would tear down the system.
While Capitalism has it's flaws, humanity isn't willing to share and play nice. Yet.
Re:I've seen communisim first hand. (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a thought: perhaps the USSR's problems were not entirely caused by who owned what.
Parent
Free?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The free users (at 300kbit) were supposed to
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't be silly (Score:3, Funny)
San Fransisco- Wi-fi free
google's fault (Score:2)
Minneapolis is almost done (Score:5, Informative)
More info here: http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/wirelessminneapol
Many squad cars and firetrucks are already using the wireless technology and a number of cameras are used for survelence in high-crime areas. Since I drive through one of these areas every day, I can tell you the cameras have already made a real difference!
There is hope that with this kind of access, that the city will become a more livable place and that some lower income people will be able to use these services to better themseleves. While I hope that this is true, I'll also take it with a grain of salt and say that I will believe it when I see it.
This service was used for several days after the bridge disaster with very good results. Talk about trial by fire!
Perhaps this opens the door for MetroFi (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Philadelphia (Score:3, Informative)
Question (Score:2)
I got curious. Is this Wireless internet behind a NAT? Does it support IPv6?
given that earthlink rides the other isp's... (Score:2)
Who owns the network and how does the law see it? (Score:2)
The SCOTUS and other courts frequently pull legal arguments out their ass. The best one that comes to mind was Scalia's lowering of requirements on poli
Constitution not offended by fit of stupidity ... (Score:4, Informative)
No, you actually have more privacy if government operates it. Government is subject to various ammendments, but individuals or corporations are not. Also, there are various privacy acts that apply to government but not individuals or corporations.
The best one that comes to mind was Scalia's lowering of requirements on police to read rights because of the "new professionalism among police." He based a ruling on how he feels about the current state of police professionalism.
Scalia lowered nothing. He wrote the dissenting opinion. The court had upheld Miranda.
His argument was not based upon police professionalism: "The Court did not just apply the Constitution when it handed down Miranda, it expanded the Constitution, imposing an immense and antidemocratic prophylactic rule upon Congress and the states. It was an example of raw, judicial power that simply asserted a constitutional right
Note that by "governing themselves" he does not mean governing themselves well: "Preventing foolish people from incriminating themselves is the only purpose of Miranda, and that is a far cry from what the Fifth Amendment requires in terms of protecting someone from being compelled to incriminate themself. Nor is a lawyer required because the interrogators can do the same as any lawyer can -- tell the suspect they have a right to be silent. The Constitution is not offended by a criminal's commendable qualm of conscience or fortunate fit of stupidity."
Parent
Technical Issues (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, trying to blanket an entire city at once is doable, but it's far more practical to grow the network from little seed areas (while keeping future growth in mind) - blanket a six block area of downtown, for instance, and then expand from that. This lets you get everything right for a small area before you apply that to larger areas - it's the way almost all WISP (wireless ISPs) operate and it works fairly well.
I think Earthlink finally realized it wasn't gonna work, which of course makes all the assumptions under which they signed contracts not so great for them.
money makes the world go round (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh right, there is none.
Everything useful in SF is doomed anyway (Score:2)
Rob Malda's area too (Score:2)
But a good portion of the population (i.e. most of Ann Arbor) can get fairly cheap DSL through AT&T/Speakeasy (okay, maybe Speakeasy isn't so cheap), or most of the county (I think) can get
Houston delayed by nine months (Score:3, Interesting)
One astute commentator [chron.com] wrote:
A better idea might be to sell repeaters (and bandwidth) to businesses at a discount rate, so that they can give their customers free public wi-fi. If the City of Houston chipped in for a few of its parks and libraries, we'd be basically complete, since there are almost no public spaces in America that aren't businesses or government institutions.
Wi-max? (Score:4, Insightful)
Springfield, IL, too (Score:3, Interesting)
For more information (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Now Meraki [meraki.com] is doing it, a company backed in by Google.
Read more about it, A Free Mesh Network for San Francisco [technologyreview.com]
Re: (Score:2)
https://home.feather.net/sanfrancisco [feather.net]
Well, that's what govt. will get you! (Score:2)
Personally, I think there were more than a few people enamored with a utopian ideal of "free Internet for all!", without considering the reasons it hasn't really happened spontaneously first.
My thinking is, if the *demand* was truly there for wi-fi practically everywhere in a city, you'd al