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Wireless Networking Communications Hardware

Philadelphia Considers Free Citywide Wireless Access 480

Posted by timothy from the that's-what-I-call-brotherly dept.
The Associated Press is running an story about Philadelphia's city goverment seriously considering creating the world's largest hotspot. "For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot....the city would likely offer the service either for free, or at costs far lower than the $35 to $60 a month charged by commercial providers"
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Philadelphia Considers Free Citywide Wireless Access More

Philadelphia Considers Free Citywide Wireless Access

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  • ME Benifits (Score:5, Insightful)

    by stecoop ( 759508 ) * on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:37AM (#10128121) Journal
    That is quite brilliant and actually cheap. Think of it, the city could reduce costs in other areas such as, say water meter reading - instead of having guy go out with a scanner to each meter, it could transmit to the office when necessary. That alone would probably save a few million. Services could use spare bandwidth for other services such as easier deployment of traffic monitors, stoplight optimization, human control of high traffic stoplights during peak hours.

    I know there is going to be many people that narrow mindedly say that the dollars could be spent on the poor or in some other avenue of no return. The city leaders have struck upon an idea that will actually revolve into a massive savings, data collection, data manipulation, data optimization threshold that will in turn benefit the entire population - it just wont be a direct "ME" benefit to everyone. I'm actually quite interested in seeing how this pans out.

    • Re:ME Benifits (Score:5, Funny)

      by callipygian-showsyst ( 631222 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:39AM (#10128160) Homepage
      city could reduce costs in other areas such as, say water meter reading

      Hey! I read water meters for a living, you insensitive clod!

      Seriously, I think that's probably the biggest stumbling block to remote meter reading! All those unionized meter readers who would suddenly be out of work.

      • Re:ME Benifits (Score:2, Informative)

        by goosman ( 145634 )
        Where I'm from, the meter readers are outsourced and are far from unionized. My brother-in-law worked for http://www.accuread.com/ [accuread.com]

      • Re:ME Benifits (Score:2, Informative)

        by Nos. ( 179609 )
        That might explain what our city did... sort of. They installed wireless metres in all homes an businesses. However, they have a very limited range. So instead of the metre reader having to walk into my yard and read the metre, they just drive passed and read the correct frequency to get my usage for the month.
      • Hey! I read water meters for a living, you insensitive clod!

        Seriously, I think that's probably the biggest stumbling block to remote meter reading! All those unionized meter readers who would suddenly be out of work.

        Better keep the meter readers un-ionized, I for one wouldn't want any negative substances in my drinking water...

    • Re:ME Benifits (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Hans1732 ( 804854 )
      The only drawback is the security, or lack-thereof, in wireless. I'm sure the security concerns can be ironed out, but you'll have to assuage a lot of people's concerns to privacy, even if it is a non-issue (anyone can walk up to any residence/business and look at the usage gauges).
    • Think of it, the city could reduce costs in other areas such as, say water meter reading - instead of having guy go out with a scanner to each meter, it could transmit to the office when necessary.

      And that would eliminate someone's job (and in the case of a city it's likely someone's family member's job). That just shouldn't happen in this period in time and it probably won't happen.

      • Re:ME Benifits (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cuzality ( 696718 )
        Why should we pay someone to do a job that we can do cheaper and more efficiently some other way? Is the goal a measurement of water used or a post to fill?

        Time to read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

        • I'm not arguing with the fact that it should be done. I am arguing that it won't be done.
      • Oh, yeah. And we can be just like Japan where they hire people to sit on street corners with hand clickers to count the number of cars passing each hour.

        And then we can ban all cars and hire people to carry us around on litters. Or, better yet, we can just follow moveonplease.org's advice and create a federal bureaucracy so large it has to hire everyone in the country. Then we'll have full employment and no one will ever lose his job for anything other than unacceptable efficiency.

    • Re:ME Benifits (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
      What many people do not get is that this will help poor people. The way to help the poor is to create jobs not to just hand them money. This could provide a lot of opertunities for people. As far as the poor well it does not take a lot of money to get a computer that will work on the internet anymore. I bought an old K6-2 off ebay for $20 put linux on it and have a pretty usful little internet box/server at home now. No I can not play games with it but it works just fine for email and surfing the net.
    • Think of it, the city could reduce costs in other areas such as, say water meter reading - instead of having guy go out with a scanner to each meter, it could transmit to the office when necessary.

      Yeah, its got to be cheaper to give a each of blue collar guys laptops with wireless connections vs their clipboard that they give to one person with a computer. /sarcasm

      I have never, ever experienced any cost savings due to more efficient technogagets in terms of lower bills (that goes for "tax cuts" as well).

      • Re:ME Benifits (Score:3, Interesting)

        by phearlez ( 769961 )
        I'm pretty sure the implication was auto-reporting meters, jeanyus.

        However that's a non-starter in most occassions. The safety regulations & liability when it comes to any type of electronics are pretty severe. Putting a device requiring voltage into a currently mechanical water meter would require at the very least a huge amount of vetting and more likely simply wouldn't be doable at all.

        From the standpoint of cost savings, however, a number of people here are missing the larger picture. Having those

    • Re:ME Benifits (Score:5, Interesting)

      by KevinKnSC ( 744603 ) * on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @11:07AM (#10128552)
      Think of it, the city could reduce costs in other areas such as, say water meter reading - instead of having guy go out with a scanner to each meter, it could transmit to the office when necessary. That alone would probably save a few million.

      This is back of the envelope:
      Let's say one guy can read 6 meters per hour (intentionally low)
      In a full day's work, he can read 48 meters.
      He works 5 days/week, 4 weeks/month, so that's 960 meters per month.
      We'll say he gets paid $15 (intentionally high)per hour.
      That's $2400 for reading 960 meters, or $2.50 per meter.

      In order for the wireless self-reporting meters to save the city money, they need to have a monthly cost (including the amortized costs of purchase and installation) of less than $2.50--and even less if the meter-reader can check more than 6 meters in an hour or gets paid less than $15/hour. I really don't see how you'd get millions in savings from this. Furthermore, you still need someone to go out and check on the wireless meters that don't report in (for example, because the owner unplugged it). For the time being, I think some jobs are still best left to people.

      (There are still probably lots of opportunities for savings and improvement, such as the traffic examples you cited. I just took issue with the wireless meter-reading part.)

    • Re:ME Benifits (Score:3, Interesting)

      by GoofyBoy ( 44399 )
      >I know there is going to be many people that narrow mindedly say that the dollars could be spent on the poor or in some other avenue of no return.

      How about spending the money on schools? On inproved health care? On the public transportation system?

      Or do these things just benefit the poor or will have no return?

      >into a massive savings,

      They are spending $1.5 million a year to maintain the network and there is no mention on how they can make up the savings. So I'm not sure where you got this from

  • Citywide WiFi? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Octos ( 68453 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:38AM (#10128136) Homepage
    Better tell the cops so they don't rough-up anyone with a laptop.

  • health risks? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by becauseiamgod ( 559722 ) * on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:38AM (#10128144)
    What I'm thinking is, how will some health groups react? Adverse affects on health by wireless, especially in such large roll-out, are still not entirely proven harmless. No, I am not worried about health effects before all the flames come in, but there are some people/groups that tend to pay attention to this.

    • Re:health risks? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ryanjensen ( 741218 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:51AM (#10128325) Homepage Journal
      Breathing, eating, sleeping, walking, driving, and working have never been proven harmless. Does that mean we should reconsider doing these things until they have been? Proving something to be harmless is like proving a negative -- it can't be done.

      If health groups have concerns about the ill effects of city-wide wireless access, let them prove that it causes ill effects. Otherwise, let innovation occur.

      • You know, I see the claim that "you can't prove a negative" tossed around quite a bit. It sounds neat, but...

        ...how do you prove that you can't prove a negative??

    • Breathing has not been proven harmless either. These people will complain about anything. I bet they all drive cars; one of them driving is generating more health hazard in a day than the wireless system would make in a year.

  • Yo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:38AM (#10128145)
    Philadelphia has been desperate to attract young profesionals to the city. This might work
    • Don't think that is enough to bring people to my "lovely" city.
    • So the guy selling pies on the side of a busy highway(yes, this actually happened to me in Philly) can now get a website and people can buy pies from the comfort of their car and have them delivered when they pass through.
      Wow, this will attract more professionals, the pie guy will need a web developer.

    • mini-dialog (Score:4, Funny)

      by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @12:22PM (#10129558) Journal
      Graduate 1: "Where should we take our Carnegie Mellon degrees and enjoy life as young prfessionals?"

      Graduate 2: "San Francisco is nice. Lots of tech there. Great weather. Lots of tech in northern Virginia. Or maybe Austin?"

      Graduate 1: "Philly! Let's be successful bachelors in Philly!"

      Graduate 2: "Um, dude, Philly is dirty. Auto insurance rates are sky high. It's been voted as the fattest city in the country. Summers are hot and humid, winters are cold and crappy. Their sports teams can't ever seem to get to the big game. The people are a bit rude...they even throw snowballs at Santa Clause."

      Graduate 1: "They have WiFi"

      Graduate 2: "I'm there!"

      The previous dialog has been provided as a reality check for bright-eyed and bushy-tailed graduates and professionals. WiFi will not increase the quality of life in a city and draw people to it.

  • 2008 newspaper headline (Score:4, Funny)

    by psyconaut ( 228947 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:38AM (#10128146)
    "Phillidelphia City has been served a class action lawsuit by parents of the recent spurt of two-headed babies being born in the city. Scientists believe all the genetic anomolies are the result of the city's huge Wifi network and the microwave radiation it emits". ;-)

    -psy

  • I always wonder about... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Elecore ( 784561 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:38AM (#10128150) Homepage
    ...security with something like this. Would you have to log in (even if it's free) so they can track you? I mean, if you go, open your laptop, get an IP and do evil things, how would they ever track your actions back to you? With your wired ISP account, there's at least SOME way to do that isn't there?
    • you would have to signup for this free stuff...it is actually quite simple to make wireless internet account based, with download limits, etc. my school already does this...we use our normal network passwords and have the same bandwidth limits as if we were physically connected to the network

    • Re:I always wonder about... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @11:22AM (#10128746)
      The Internet has no real way to identify people. Never did. Big deal. It's no different than payphones - there are lots of ways to get onto the Internet anonymously. Tracking everybody and everything so nobody can put a virus on the 'net is a totally unrealistic pipe dream, and chasing that fantasy will only burden legitimate users in a myriad of ways.

    • Re:I always wonder about... (Score:5, Informative)

      by LnxAddct ( 679316 ) <sgk25@drexel.edu> on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @12:01PM (#10129296)
      Ignore all of the previous responses (although they did have some neat ideas). I live in philly and we already have wifi at Love Park, the Reading Terminal, and some other popular areas. Its all free and its an ever expanding project, but only recently have they thought about going city wide. Anyway, there is no encryption, no authentication, no anything, you turn your computer/pda/{wireless device} and do what you have to. The bandwidth is really good, even with many people using it. And its convenient as hell, I mean you literally just sit down browse the web,or play enemy-territory :), and leave when your done. No registration/free registration/ or anything. I guess you could say thats a bad thing but if you ever did anything really illegal I guess they could kind of track you with your MAC address. Personally, I prefer how they have it set up, its keeping costs at the lowest, while maximizing accessibility. There is little administration costs, they set up the access point and let it go. It only ever needs to be looked at again if it malfunctions. You don't have to pay someone to look at logs all day, or block sites and make sure people don't get around it, or explain to people why they can't connect to certain things, or why a service they want won't work because some port is blocked. The wireless access is "just there" to use at your will like many public services payed for by taxes(although, I guess you could say at your own risk). Nothing is blocked (as far as I know) So far its been a major success, I could only see them requiring authentication if illegal activity got out of hand.
      Regards,
      Steve
    • yes. as mentioned in this [cnn.com] article, the plan is to have people register for an account and log in to use the service.

  • Finally, the Americans start to get it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:39AM (#10128156)

    The only way you can improve technology is by getting the public sector involved in a defining leadership role. If you leave it to the corps, they'll keep you at the horse-and-buggy stage forever, just to keep robbing you blind.

    Let's hope this signals a trend.

    • Re:Finally, the Americans start to get it. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @11:33AM (#10128914)
      That's why Intel, AMD and IBM have been stuck at 33 MHz for thier CPUs since 1993 right? Because they've been keeping us at the horse and buggy stage forever, charging us all $7000 for a computer.

      And why we are still fighting infections with plain old penicillin, I mean the Drug Companies aren't making better drugs since they can string us along.

      My, I still have to take injections of Testosterone rather than having some fancy new patch or gel that doesn't fry my liver since the good people at Watson http://www.androderm.com/p/what_is_androderm/index .asp feel like keeping us at the buggy and horse stage of life.

      If only the government would get involved so our technology could be as advanced as the Welfare and Housing Developments in the inner cities are...

  • Freedom of use when it is city owned? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:39AM (#10128158)
    This is pretty thin on details but $10 million in infrastructure and $1.5/year to maintain seems awfully low for such a large coverage area. It's great that Philly has a mayor that is so technologically inclined. Perhaps when the conservatives start whining that there should be controls placed on the network to eliminate freedom of use (porn, etc) he might step in and kick it out?

    I suppose that you get what you pay for when you are using a city-wide network (at ~$15) but shouldn't we be offering this without restriction on what you can visit?
    • Restrictions? Wonderful! Let the tight-asses set up their porn filters and other self-righteous, feel-good measures.

      Then...

      1) Get yourself a dedicated access line;
      2) Set up Squid;
      3) Use the free POPs now set up by the city, charge a small fee for "unfiltered" access;
      4) Profit!

  • I'd love to have that contract (Score:4, Funny)

    by eric76 ( 679787 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:39AM (#10128161)
    At $10,000,000, that would be a nice contract to have.

    What do you bet that someone with really good connections gets the contract?

  • Free (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:40AM (#10128171)
    Well it's not going to be free. Taxes will pay for it. Local I suspect, but depending on the Senators and Reps from PA, they might get some Federal monies for it, good old Pork as the people from states not getting the dough call it.
    • I'd be slightly interested in this program if I thought that it would happen at all. Think about the potential for VOIP. Think about cell phone companies getting mad that they are being put out of business by the government. Think about ISPs getting mad that they are being put out of business by the government. Then think about how much money these guys will spend to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. Helloooo lobbying industry, Christmas came twice for you this year!

    • Re:Free (Score:3, Interesting)

      by lar3ry ( 10905 )
      It can also be financed by commercial donations. Since you'll have to login in order to get access, the login screen and initial home page can serve advertisements.

      It's been been done before [manchesterwireless.org].

    • Re:Free (Score:3, Interesting)

      by timeOday ( 582209 )
      Nothing is free, but this would eliminate the biggest expenses of such a service - advertising and billing.

      Cities often spend money to improve their image and attract business, because they think it's a good investment. At least this benefits everybody and contribues to commerce in a reasonably direct way. In short, I'll take citywide WiFi over a tax break for Wal-Mart any day.

  • I suppose.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ormoru ( 121922 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:40AM (#10128176)
    This could be a good thing. After all, pushing the technology envelope is great. Adding wireless sounds wonderful and geeky and technically enjoyable.

    What about the security aspects though?
    And who will be in charge of the usage of the acounts, monitoring of traffic, etc. to make sure the l33t kids down on 14th street aren't trying to knock over the DOD or the Pentagon? Not to mention, keeping up all the wireless devices on security updates, and latest antivirus patterns to make sure it doesn't turn into a network of zombies that ensure a cyber terrorist attack?

    just my .02

  • Wow (Score:3, Funny)

    by The-Bus ( 138060 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:41AM (#10128192)
    This is what Philly needs... Unfortunately the city is a bit stagnant in certain areas and always feeling overshadowed by Washington D.C. or New York City (for non-USians, those cities are about 2 hours away from each).

    Knowing the history of Philadelphia, this will come out 5 years after Longhorn and/or Duke Nukem and cost $3.5 billion New World Dollars (the currency established in 2045).
    • Knowing the history of Philadelphia, this will come out 5 years after Longhorn and/or Duke Nukem and cost $3.5 billion New World Dollars (the currency established in 2045).

      I second that. I can give two examples showing why:

      Circa 1870, the city started construction on City Hall. They didnt finish until around 1900. A few blocks away, a banker built one of the city's first "skyscrapers" (a 10-story building that I dont think exists anymore) in under 10 years during that 30 year window. It really woke t

  • ...Free? No. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by abkaiser ( 744418 )
    I can't see how they could do this for free. I would imagine, like the recent article about Grand Haven, MI [slashdot.org], there will indeed be a cost associated with the service.

    Okay, so that's Grand Haven, Philly... Any others?

    One city at a time...

  • Considering the obvious insecurity of wireless, how will they keep the illegal downloading down? Almost anyone who knows what they're doing can easily spoof a MAC address and download questionable content and get away with it.
    • They'll manage that the same way any other ISP does. It'll be reactive instead of proactive.
    • Troll? hadly.

      Anyways, wireless networks in which you have to sign up for such as this one will be. Generally redirect all traffic through an access port. In such you will have to login to the system in order to gain access. Your login will be tied to any activity that you engage in. Of course one can hack the system theoretically, but it would be on the level of difficulty of hacking any other wireless system in which you are not given access too. Therefor I don't see the dangers in this as opposed to any

  • Ashcroft will love this... (Score:4, Funny)

    by comrade009 ( 797517 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:42AM (#10128207)
    ... once all necessary wire-tapping capabilities are installed, of course.

  • Uh.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Masami Eiri ( 617825 ) <brain.wavNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:43AM (#10128212) Journal
    I work for the Philly government... and I haven't heard about this..
    Actually, my department is going to be starting a pilot for the employees, now whether this will feed into the 'big one' or not stands to be seen.

  • They don't know what they are saying! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by toetagger1 ( 795806 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:45AM (#10128230)

    The city's chief information officer, Dianah Neff, is quoted in the article:

    "If you're out on your front porch with a laptop, you could dial in, register at no charge, and be able to access a high speed connection,"

    [Emphasis added]

    I have never seen a wirless dial up modem before, have you? I also hope they don't plan on using Blue Socket [bluesocket.com], out of personal experiences of a much smaller installation attempt.

    On a side note, I don't think I want to sit on the front porch for too long in Philadelphia. That might be a big health risk! Shouldn't they fix those issues first, before they worry about being at the forfront of wirless access?

    • Jeez, it's just a phrase... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by WIAKywbfatw ( 307557 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:57AM (#10128401) Journal
      After all, you don't exactly dial when you call someone on the phone nowadays, do you?

      When was the last time you saw, let alone used, a rotary dial phone? Outside film and television, the last time I saw or used one must have been close to 15 years ago.

      In fact, I bet if you gave anyone under the age of 20 such a phone and told them to dial 911 (999, 112, or whatever) then they wouldn't have a clue how to do it.

      Dialling, per se, is obsolete. However the language is still with us, and likely will be for a very long time.
    • To access WAP sites using GSM you have to dialup.
  • I hope they charge to use it for more than half an hour though. We've got enough waste in government without every city offering free wifi. I would guess the majority of people don't benefit from this, even if it is cool.

    No mention of security in the article, but I would hope they use some kind of encryption, else the script kiddies will have a field day getting a city's worth of passwords out of Philly.

  • Unwired City? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by drewzhrodague ( 606182 ) <drew@nOsPaM.zhrodague.net> on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:47AM (#10128266) Homepage Journal
    Ah, Philadelphia, my home town. I went to attend one of the 80211-planet.com [80211-planet.com] Wi-Fi shows there a few years ago. The conf was pretty small compared to all of the other shows I've been to. Thank goodness that's changed. We did quite a bit of wardriving, a snipplet of which you can see here [angelfire.com]. Since then, Wi-Fi coverage has exploded, which you can see here and for your area [wifimaps.com].

    Of course, the pansy-assed white folks there can't cook, there are still a few places to get a decent meal.

  • Economics (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If publicly provided wifi is cheaper than commerically provided wifi, it is because the service is subsidized by increased taxation (or the redirection of tax funds from other uses).

    There's nothing magical about the state - it cannot provide wifi somehow far more cheaply than it costs commerical providers. Indeed, the state strongly tends to be *far* less efficient than commerical providers because it has access to public funds and so doesn't have to worry about being efficient in the way a commerical com

  • free broadband access will make USA more liberal (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cryofan ( 194126 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:48AM (#10128287) Journal
    Free broadband access means 70% of AMericans could watch video from any source at all. People could download video off of p2p networks, meaning that the high barrier to entry for getting a TV show or movie out to an audience would be changed to a lower barrier to entry. You would still have to have cameras (but they are getting reall cheap now) and actors and production sets. But the distribution system (tv stations, cable tv systems, movie theaters etc) has always been the obstacle to be overcome.

    But when anyone with a camera, free editing software, and some time and actors can make a movie, then upload it onto p2p, where it could be watched on free or very cheap p2p, that is going to mean that more leftist, liberal, progressive ideas are going to be propagated into American minds.

    Right now, the mainstream media/Hollywood is liberal in the social sense (i.e., gay and minority rights, abortion, etc), but they are quite conservative in the economics /i? sense: meaning that leftist ideas about raising the tax rates on the rich to former levels (e.g., 60% or more), and ideas about welfare for any poor person, and universal health care, these ideas are shunted aside.

    But free broadband would disrupt the media/entertainment distribution machine, thus allowing penetration for more liberal, leftist ideas.

    I am all for it!

  • $10 Million? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by toetagger1 ( 795806 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:50AM (#10128306)

    The article says that they would use houndreds to thousands of wirless access points. Let's assume that they end up using 10,000 access points:

    $10,000,000 / 10,000 access points = 1,000 $ / access point

    Does it really cost $1000 for hardware and installation if you do it 10,000 times?

    • Re:$10 Million? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bje2 ( 533276 ) * on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:53AM (#10128343)
      no, but think about the labor needed to do that, and the technicians to solve all the problems, and then the tech support responsibilities for a city of 1.5 million people trying to connect to the wireless network...

  • Port Blocking (Score:2, Interesting)

    by djhertz ( 322457 )
    Would they really allow full free access, or would they want to limit it to just port 80? I would think having full open access would just allow script kiddies to go nuts. Would there be any real harm if just port 80 were allowed? Would it be possible to use comprimised machines in Philly to DDOS if that was the only port allowed? Ok, enough questions, back to work.

  • I wish that my city would do this. Most of the ISPs in Toronto are so problematic and greedy*, it would be great if there was a government-owned ISP that provided DSL and WiFi access. Of course, it would have to have very progressive privacy policy. ;)

    It would be a lot cheaper (assuming the city wasn't in it to make a profit), and it could run at a loss - that is, if a resession hit and the local cable monopoly started raising prices and cutting service, the government-owned ISP could keep high-tech busine

  • Philadelphia is different than other cities on the east coast in that there is a 'city-like' section that is downtown Philadelphia. There are however a LOT of suburbs that are considered Philadelphia as well...I dont think the article noted whether these suburbs (like West and North) will be covered?
    • > There are however a LOT of suburbs that are
      > considered Philadelphia as well

      No there aren't. The City of Philadelphia is very well defined. The "suburbs" (Delaware, Chester, Bucks, and Montgomery counties) obviously wouldn't be subject to this legislation because the City Council and John Street only have jurisdiction over the city itself. Now, whether they chose to apply it just to Center City is a different story, but there are no "suburbs that are considered Philadelphia." Either you live in

  • Love to be a fly on the wall at comcast right now (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bje2 ( 533276 ) * on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @10:56AM (#10128387)
    It'll be interesting to see how Comcast reacts to this...comcast is a major precense in phildelphia (including its corporate headquarters)...they own 2 of the major sports teams (Flyers & 76ers), and they're one of the leading broadband providers in the area...this can't possibly make them happy...
    • ...this can't possibly make them happy...

      I dunno--suppose an entire city were to buy their broadband access through them...those wireless access points have to connect to the Internet somehow, though some sort of provider.

      Plus, the expensive and inconvenient hassles of tech support get offloaded on to the city.

  • Can it still be called war-driving if the whole place is wi-fi accessible?
  • If this is successful, wouldn't it (eventually) put most of the ISPs in Philly out of business? Who wants to pay $40/mo for a cable connection when you can buy a $60 access point and get access for free?

    Obviously there will still be a market for business, people requiring higher bandwidth, etc., but I would think the majority of people would switch.

  • This is what we need -- more government intrusion into the free market. Tax payer dollars can never do efficiently what private dollars can do in so many cases.

    I hate to see this happen -- how many ISPs will initially get badly hurt only for the public to find out that the public wireless network won't handle the bandwidth.

    If my ISP gave me the same service as my city clerk's office did, I'd dump it.

  • In action in Chaska, MN (Score:3, Informative)

    by CosmicDreams ( 23020 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @11:08AM (#10128561) Journal
    I recently moved to a suburb of the Twin cities called Chaska, MN. Right when I moved they were rolling out their implementation of a town-wide wireless network. Their solution involved handing out wireless bridges to customers and sell service for $15 dollars a month.

    Service was poor to nonexistant for the first three months. But as more residents bought in to the idea and turned on their bridges, access speeds and reliability greatly improved. Now its much faster than dial-up and I can even play a few games online.
  • Comcast will never let it happen. They have their corporate HQ here in Philadelphia, and are quite influential in the city. They will find a way to kill this initiative. Why am I so sure? Look at their past behavior:

    They own some of the Philadelphia sports teams and refuse to sell the home game broadcast rights to satellite providers for any price-- so if you live in Philadelphia and want to see televised Flyers and Sixers home games you must have Comcast cable, period.

    RCN tried to start offering cable TV, internet and phone service in Philadelphia a few years ago, and Comcast used their influence to throw up so many roadblocks, that RCN gave up and went away.

    They do not, and will not, stand for something endangering their revenues on their home turf.

    ~Philly
    • Broadcasting & Cable Editorial about Comcast. [broadcastingcable.com]

      U: phelps123
      P: 321joe

      (Thanks to BugMeNot for the login credentials)

      ~Philly

    • RCN tried to start offering cable TV, internet and phone service in Philadelphia a few years ago, and Comcast used their influence to throw up so many roadblocks, that RCN gave up and went away.

      That's entirely not true. Both my mother-in-law and my wife and I have RCN cable, internet, and phone in Philly. Granted, their service is not available anywhere more than a few miles outside of the city, but to say that RCN "gave up and went away" is a complete fallacy. This is a shame because RCN's internet ser

  • Big Brother is sniffing you? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nlinecomputers ( 602059 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @11:11AM (#10128603)
    Call me paranoid but this seems like just too easy to tap into and monitor traffic. Or access wifi webcams. Or hundreds of other ways to use/misuse this system to watch the sheep.

  • Corporate Lobbyists and Lawyers will kill it (Score:3, Interesting)

    by HighOrbit ( 631451 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @11:13AM (#10128620)
    A while back, a town in Missouri wanted to offer telecommunications as a public service. A bunch of lobbyists for the telecommunications industry perceived this as a threat and got the state legislature to pass a law forbidding any local government from offering telecommunications as a public service. The Missouri Municipal League sued claiming that federal law pre-empted the states from prohibiting the cities. The case was agued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and was decided in favor of the state (and telecommunications industry). The case is "Nixon, Attorney General Of Missouri V. Missouri Municipal League Et Al." and a PDF of the decision can be found here [supremecourtus.gov] At least 11 other states have similar laws to prevent local governments from "competing" with private telecommunications businesses.

    The upshot is that if Verizon (or the industry generally) feels threatened, they will just buy some state legislators and pass a state law prohibiting it.

  • My city has this already (Score:3, Informative)

    by ViXX0r ( 188100 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @11:18AM (#10128690) Homepage
    Fredericton, New Brunswick has had this implemented since last autumn. Wireless G service is available for free throughout the entire downtown core courtesy of the city. They are slowly expanding the service area, too. I've used it on a friends notebook and it is blazingly fast.

  • Only $10 million? You get what you pay for! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @11:18AM (#10128693)
    I can tell you this, it will cost them a lot more than the initially $10 million. Is the city going to budget to maintain this service like they would water or other municipal utilities? I can tell you this, my water department are a bunch of idiots and I certainly would not want my city government running my internet access.

  • Wite tapping? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Wednesday September 01, 2004 @11:21AM (#10128741)
    Will this make it much easier for the government to monitor our email, VOIP, and IM? I think there are ISPs that only cooperate if there is a warrant to do so. What privacy will we have under this system if the city is more than happy to just cooperate with orgs like the FBI? Also, since this is a municipal service are we "virtually" give up our rights to privacy using it like walking out onto a public street?

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