Why Municipal Wi-Fi Networks have Been Such a Flop 236
Jake Melville from Slate shot us a link to one of their stories that outlines why municipal wi-fi failed but also tells of the too-rare success stories. While cities that left their wi-fi in the hands of the private sector fell prey to the "last-mile" problem, grassroots efforts such as that in St. Cloud, FL, have blossomed.
Long story short: (Score:5, Insightful)
As a politician, you can't 'sell' citywide internet access as easily as you can public transport, sewer system or power. It's not one of those "must have" things, it's one of those "why should I have to pay for it" things.
It's easy to get other municipal expenses explained. Citywide public transport? Ok, you may have a car so you might not need it, but if everyone did, you'd be in jams longer. Gas? Duh. Power? Duh! Sewer system? DUH!
Internet? Huh? Interhet? Hell what do I need that for, eh? If someone wanna use it, they gotta pay it, 'k, not on my tax money!
Should we reach the point where internet access becomes so much a part of everyday life as tapwater and power in your apartment, we can talk about it. Before that, no politician would survive it, politically, to suggest blowing tax money into internet.
It could work akin to public transport, where you pay a (nominal) monthly fee, but then, in how many cities could that work? I mean, it would certainly work around here, where you still pay 50+ for 1024/256, but how about areas where companies already offer 4mbit+ for less than 30?
Re:Long story short: (Score:5, Insightful)
Was home electricity really a 'part of everyday life' before electricity generation and distribution received any substantial government investment?
Re:Long story short: (Score:4, Insightful)
its all rather simple (Score:5, Insightful)
In the pacific there have been free wireless access rollouts that are problem free. I mean shit, if an Island can manage it, so can a city ffs.
My suspicion is that the march of technology is hampered by the greed of individuals.
Re:Long story short: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know that. Even not counting any expenditure on the backbone, the vast majority of broadband connections in the UK are ADSL, which uses the phone network installed by the nationalised Post Office Telecommunications.
The point I was trying to make was that, given the GPP's criteria - that a utility has to become 'everyday' before it should receive government funding - we would have no electricity in our houses.
Re:Long story short: (Score:3, Insightful)
Erm, what uglyduckling said. I'm not against the provision of utilities by private entities (although I think it should always go through a nationalised wholesaler), but the government has a role in the setting up of the infrastructure which would otherwise be uneconomical, as a catalyst to further development.
WiFi security (Score:4, Insightful)
So if I'm going to pay for a personal access anyway, tell me why should I be thrilled at paying into the cities 'free' WiFi scheme?
What about lawsuits (Score:5, Insightful)
I work for a municipality (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but I'd much rather spend those millions to benefit a school and get educational software into Florida's failing schools. Or hell, open an entire new school so kids don't have to wake up an hour earlier to be bussed half way across the city. There are just so many way this money could be used better. That's why municipal wifi doesn't take off.
Re:Long story short: (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed. Much of the US would still be without power and telephone service today if it hadn't been for actions taken by the federal government. There was simply no economically viable way for private sector companies to provide such service to any place other than dense, urban areas. But as such services became more and more necessary to our way of life, those areas that didn't get it would become less and less viable as places for further development. For a government with an interest in seeing a flourishing of the country and economy, it made sense to get everyone wired in, so we subsidized heavily the process of deploying these networks. And viewed in terms of what we put in vs. the eventual tax revenue on a more robust economy, it more than paid for itself. But it required a massive public investment and a multi-decade long view to realize this. It's much like the interstate highway system. The amount of economic activity that it enables and encourages benefits everyone and almost certainly more than pays for itself, but it's really hard to quantify.
I'm skeptical about whether the Internet falls into this same category, but I do have to object to the GP's historically naive assertion an entirely private-sector approach "works" for electricity. It didn't, and it's an excellent example of how government can be a catalyst for further development that ultimately benefits us all, if it does it right. TFA is an example of how it can do it wrong...
Why muni WiFi *should* fail (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Long story short: (Score:4, Insightful)
Those of us who live in the such a so cold "backwater country" laugh that you actually believe you're only paying $15 dollars a month when you're really paying much more than that to download those stupid Hollywood movies when you factor in the extra tax money collected from you and used to subsidize the infrastructure.
$15 dollars is a small percent of the actual cost you pay. You're just too stupid to understand that. You actually believe that when the goverment forcefully takes money from you and spends it to pay 80% of the cost of something and then charges you an additional 20% on top of that if you want to actually use what you've already partially paid for, that you're getting some kind of deal.
I'm happy to see it flop! (Score:4, Insightful)
Municipal wifi is so cheap that there really is no reason we couldn't do that *and* build a fiber-optic network; I mean, it's an order of magnitude cheaper so why not do both. Fast networks are already crucial infrastructure, and will be even more so, particularly in a city that considers itself a capital of high tech. Private industry isn't going to get it done. So just step up and *lead* already. I can't believe I live in a rich, densely populated, supposed high-tech capital and the best broadband I can get for less than $100 a month is this shitty 1.5Mbps/384Kbps DSL!
Re:Long story short: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>I work in networking, so I was able to get a Linksys with DD-WRT and route that through the house. Less technical neighbors are SOL.
Why the contradictory statements? Either you got it to work or you didn't. And since when was DD-WRT a requirement to run a Linksys box as an AP? If you really do work in networking then I wouldn't go round bragging that you can't run WIFI in your own home, if I were you. Apologies if you live in a lead-lined mansion...
Re:I work for a municipality (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Long story short: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, there are(education for example). But I believe these services are very rare, and electricity is not one of them.
"Sure, and people on the poor side of town should just move into the rich neighborhoods, since private industry certainly isn't going to waste money wiring areas where the demand and ability to pay isn't high enough."
If people on the poor side of town think of a good way to utilize this infrastructure, then they can raise some capital and buy some property where there is infrastructure.
If land values are high enough so that capital costs would be prohibitive, they could raise capital to pay a power company to give them service. If the costs are too high, well, then the idea was not productive enough, and society would be poorer overall if it was carried out.
And don't change the argument, within cities, DSL is available in even the poorest areas. The poor in the US are still relatively affluent, and it is still very profitable for infrastructure companies to cover them.
Re:WiFi security (Score:4, Insightful)
For other stuff, VPNs/ssl tunnels/whatever are fairly easy to put together, and I agree someone should do that so your browsing isn't transparent to anyone within 100 meters of you.
Re:The Minneapolis Rollout (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Long story short: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is what previous posters have been trying to get across when they were mentioning the Rural Electrification Projects of the early 20th century. Private power and telephone companies saw no profit in running utility lines out to farm country, where you might have a home every acre (or every five or ten!); the upshot is that rural customers who had any service at all would be paying three or four times as much as urban dwellers for it. This was addressed by private-public partnerships and utility co-ops, some of which still exist to this day.
No offense, but your argument seems to exhibit a particular kind of libertarian naivete which refuses to admit the existence of indirect benefits. You, personally, may be poorer by the amount of the surcharge on your power bill still funding such projects, and indeed you are probably being denied a full meal at Chili's annually (if the taxes are particularly onerous in your area, you may even be denied a margarita with that meal), but you, personally, have almost certainly reaped much more indirect benefit from farmers who have utility service. Like other private-public partnerships where government has intervened to do things like build the railroads and the interstate system, the point is that if you stop thinking of societal infrastructure as a profit center in and of itself and instead as something that is, broadly speaking, part of the general welfare, the indirect return on that investment in terms of efficiency, opening markets, and creating whole new ones vastly exceeds the capital spent on the infrastructure.
Back on the actual topic of the Slashdot post (gasp), I think a previous poster hit the nail on the head -- municipal wi-fi networks tend not to work because they really aren't societal infrastructure in the way electricity, sewer, and roads are. They're not even necessary if you grant that internet access is becoming critical infrastructure (just plug into the damn ethernet jack, son). And suddenly, you're not arguing for a subsidized basic service or even a subsidized forward-thinking visionary plan with room for debate, you're arguing for a government-provided luxury. That's gonna raise hackles across the political spectrum.