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Wireless Networking Hardware

Chicago To Consider City-Wide Wireless Network 190

Posted by timothy from the do-you-really-want-your-city-as-your-isp? dept.
Mitchell writes "Chicago Indymedia reports on developments pertaining to community internet in Chicago. A press release from the Center for Neighborhood Technology reports that the city's Finance Committee has commissioned a study to explore the possibility of low-cost wireless internet across the city of Chicago, and reserve Chicago's right to establish a citywide Wi-Fi network. It could run into efforts underway now in the state capital by Big Telecom to shut out muni Internet in Illinois." Several readers also pointed to the Chicago Tribune's story on this possibility, including efforts to head off regulation which would make municipal Wi-Fi difficult.
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Chicago To Consider City-Wide Wireless Network More

Chicago To Consider City-Wide Wireless Network

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  • Of course, that'll also have the effect of putting more people on the internet, which will result in Googles having to have to beef up their search indices on "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Bears", "Ditka", and "Polish Sausage".

    How will MSN respond? fp
    • Googles having to have to beef up their search indices on "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Bears", "Ditka", and "Polish Sausage".

      Tell me, are "daaa bears", "ditka" and "polish sausage" pr0n words? cuz I was under the impression that Google handled much more requests for pr0n than local culinary curiosities...

    • Re:Good move... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      bragging about fp when your a subscriber is like gloating at beating kids at a soccer game ;)
    • How many people do you expect own a wireless-ready laptop and yet have never used the Internet? Not very many, I'd guess.
    • Yeah indeed...

      After shelling out all that bri^H^H^HPOLITICAL Contributions, the corporations are getting what they duly deserve. An "Up yours!"

      • Re:Good move... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by DarthBart ( 640519 )
        It'll go in, work reliably for several years....then Mayor Daley will claim that its being used for terrorist activities and get police escorted techies to execute surprise middle-of-the-night attacks on the access points and carve big "X"'s in the printed circuit boards, rendering them useless.
        • Mod parent funny!!

          Well, it is to those of us who live here - or depended on Meigs Field. Ok, maybe it wasn't funny. This is exactly how he shut down Meigs. Sent bulldozers in the middle of night to carve huge Xs in the runway rendering it useless. He caught EVERYONE flatfooted with that move.
          • No, it was pretty funny. More that he completely got away with doing so than that it happened. Who else in American politics, except for maybe Ted Kennedy and George Bush, could get away with something like that scott free?
    • Me too! I was just thinking that. OMG!

      What's this newsgroup for, anyway?

  • is city-wide wireless too costly? (Score:5, Informative)

    by dmf415 ( 218827 ) * on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:29PM (#11894259)
    More than 100 U.S. municipalities are considering deploying wireless city-wide networks. In this article, Network Computing's Dave Molta contends that such networks will stifle competition and will be an expensive mistake.

    more here:
    http://informationweek.mobilepipeline.com/6 0300027
    • It probably depends upon the city.

    • Re:is city-wide wireless too costly? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sfjoe ( 470510 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:33PM (#11894303)
      Who decides what is "too costly"?
      If the citizens of an urban area decide they want to pay for Wi-Fi, why does a state representative from downstate Hooterville think they can say otherwise?

      • In this article, Network Computing's Dave Molta contends that such networks will stifle competition and will be an expensive mistake.

        Oh yeah, let's not forget how today's telcos so favor competition. Anything anybody does that goes against telcos' interests cannot be bad for consumers.

        Oh and besides, Dave Molta's an idiot imho...

      • Re:is city-wide wireless too costly? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by QuantumRiff ( 120817 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:48PM (#11894456)
        I think in my town, Police officers are too costly. We could outsource the work to a private company, like the guys at the mall! That way, were saving money, and not stifling profit ^h competition. (fortunately for the neighbors, not everyone thinks that)

        I think it should be up to the town. Here in my town, you have 1 choice if you do not want dial up connections that run at 19.8k (nasty old phone lines). yep, you can call the cable company, and pay them $35 (oops, just went up, make it $45 a month to get online.) In my community, there is alot of people that can't afford that. We have a Library with probably 15 pc's with internet access. Pushing a free wireless system would probably go over very, very well in this town. And if the majority of people want it, and there is no meaningful competition providing it already, why not? Thats how police, fire, ambulances, and even water and utility services started..

      • Who decides what is "too costly"?
        If the citizens of an urban area decide they want to pay for Wi-Fi, why does a state representative from downstate Hooterville think they can say otherwise?

        But they don't end up paying for all of it. State and local taxes are deductable, so the Federal government ends up subsidizing this.

        The more and more services a city provides, the less and less they pay a share of Federal taxes.

        And some states let you deduct city taxes from your state income tax, so the rest of the s
        • So next time you wonder how a city can have high taxes, but still get by economically, remember that they're being subsidized by the rest of us.

          That is completely backwards. It's the urban areas that are supporting the rural areas - not vice versa. Do you really think the six of you living out there are paying enough in taxes to build that road?

          • That is completely backwards. It's the urban areas that are supporting the rural areas - not vice versa. Do you really think the six of you living out there are paying enough in taxes to build that road?

            I said, A city, not cities.

            Those cities with lower taxes subsidize those cities with higher taxes.

            So the rest of us means those living in cities that are frugal versus those cities with high taxes.

      • I guess it all comes down to what you think the government is for. Should we rely on a government entity to provide an essential service that can and will be provided by the public sector or should we let private interests set up their own system? As a small WISP, it would be hard for me to compete with a service provider who charges everyone for service, including my customers, yet only provides service to a limited group of customers. On the other hand, if the service is suported by payments made by th

    • Re:is city-wide wireless too costly? (Score:4, Informative)

      by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:36PM (#11894319) Homepage
      Why would they need to do this anyway? They practically already have it [wigle.net].
    • read the article:

      The basic argument against metro Wi-Fi deployments boils down to three major points. First, these initiatives are viewed as inappropriate expenditures of public funds that are likely to result in higher than expected ongoing operational costs. Second, the report asserts that such efforts are both anti-competitive and will have a chilling effect on private efforts to expand broadband services. Finally, the authors maintain that the goals espoused for these projects, which range from economi

    • Re:is city-wide wireless too costly? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by hanshotfirst ( 851936 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:38PM (#11894337)
      I don't see this stifling any competition, but encouraging it. The City has to buy their bandwidth from somebody, right? And set up the hotspots? No city is going to form a bureau of wi-fi-management (ok, maybe they would) -- they'll contract the whole thing to the lowest bidder. Hence, competition among network suppliers.

      Who are the network suppliers? Oh yeah, the big telco's. So they still get their money. They just don't get to set profit margins as high because they have to be low bidder to get the contract. Would this make an interesting alternative to legislating price controls? The city is simply a big customer, and market forces rule.

      • Re:is city-wide wireless too costly? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:57PM (#11894545)
        No city is going to form a bureau of wi-fi-management (ok, maybe they would)

        Oh yeah they will. Someone has to have his finger on the pursestrings. Maybe not the technical portion, but you can bet your ass that an office within the city govt. will be set up to administer this thing.

        they'll contract the whole thing to the lowest bidder. Hence, competition among network suppliers.

        and they'll pay that contract through money collected from everybody, not just people and businesses who wanted it. Like all other WiFi suppliers would have to.

        For those who want the service, it may well be cheaper. For those who don't want/need it, no price is too low.

        The city is simply a big customer, and market forces rule

        The city has the ability to force everyone to be in the market. If TimeWarner could force everybody in town to pay up, they could (theoretically) lower their enduser prices as well.

    • Re:is city-wide wireless too costly or "stifle" ? (Score:5, Informative)

      by dirkx ( 540136 ) <dirkx@vangulik.org> on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:49PM (#11894474) Homepage
      Heck - we build one here in Leiden, the Netherlands (and yes - it is all open source):

      WirelessLeiden [wirelessleiden.nl] 75+ nodes and growing every week.

      And the result is rather the opposite; a long list of companies emerged as a direct result of that: AnyWi [anywi.com], Gandalf [gandalf.nl], Wido [wi-do.com] and half a dozen others. Making Leiden and the direct region something of a WiFi focal point.


      I would not call that effect "stiffling"... the only few people stiffed may be some big incumbents which where to slow to move.


      Dw

      • >the only few people stiffed may be some big incumbents which where to slow to move.

        Exactly. Companies have had years to lease the lightpoles and give us city-wide wirless and they just havent. The dinosaurs dont want to do it and I'm sick of waiting for them to act. The city might as well do it and send the entire metropolis into the 21st century. Broadband penetration in the Chicagoland area isnt too hot and is mainly the local phone monopoly vs the local cable monopoly. Cell carriers aren't helpin
    • from your article:
      "Interestingly, the report only briefly touches on the immense technical obstacles associated with delivering broadband Wi-Fi services across a metropolitan area, especially in the 2.4-GHz band. Wi-Fi is a LAN technology that is well suited for many applications, ranging from home networking to enterprise LAN services to public hotspots. But using it for broadband wireless WAN services has always struck this pundit as ill advised. That's one of the key reasons 802.16 is viewed by many as a
      • How is Wi-Max the right technology? The technology isn't even available yet, virtually every laptop already has Wi-Fi, and cards are cheap. Furthermore, Wi-Max doesn't provide enough bandwidth for the number of users this type of thing will get. This is Chicago, a big city. A few hundred megabits shared isn't going to cut it, so you have to make the footprint for each cell small in order to use the spectrum efficiently enough.
    • TVA anybody?
      This created jobs, provided power to people without eletricity, and helped reduced private utility companies prices.... Anyone see a parallel?

    • If people wanted to make money selling WiFi in Chicago, they woulda, shoulda, coulda already done it. They haven't. Nobody pays for WiFi in public spaces because there are too many Intelligentsia(TM) (an indy coffee house supplier) coffee houses giving it away to get some customer loyalty. Hotels downtown practically MUST have free wifi, or they would lose so many small business meetings.

      Conclusion: WiFi is good for the city, but it does not offer enough margin to provide adequate business incentive. Ther

  • I knew it! (Score:3, Funny)

    by The Ultimate Fartkno ( 756456 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:32PM (#11894281)
    The Bean is no more than a monstrous Wi-Fi hax0r antenna!

  • Save our DNA (Score:2, Funny)

    by timpen ( 79168 )
    Something else to damage our DNA?

  • Just watch.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MoOsEb0y ( 2177 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:33PM (#11894290)
    in three days, we'll read a story about how the Illinois legislature is banning municipal wireless.

  • Gotta love that (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sparr0 ( 451780 ) <sparr0@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:34PM (#11894304) Homepage Journal
    grandfather clause. It is sad that they have to rush this to implementation just to beat the legislation out the door.
    • What's even more sad is that if it's in any way worse than public offerings all the pro-corporation dumbasses will point to this network and say "See! We told you that corporations can do better!"
  • I wish the states would run grocery stores and perhaps clothing stores. Would be much nicer to have a lower bill at the end of each week.

    • Re:grocery stores (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      In Pennsylvania the state runs the liquor stores. That's why the first thing you see when crossing to New Jersey is about a dozen liquor stores.

    • Re:grocery stores (Score:3, Insightful)

      by conway ( 536486 )
      I wish the states would run grocery stores and perhaps clothing stores. Would be much nicer to have a lower bill at the end of each week.

      What makes you think you will have lower bills?
      State ventures are usually much less efficient than private ones, so if anything, you would see either higher bills, or higher taxes. Either way, you'd end up paying more.
      If you want state-run stores and industry, try moving to the last surviving communist countries - North Korea or Cuba for example. Good luck.

  • After... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DoubleDangerClub ( 855480 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:37PM (#11894331) Homepage
    I'm amazed that neither San Francisco (who was also thinking of this idea) or Chicago are worried about people messing with these city wide wi-fi networks. Can anyone help give further insight into that problem?

    I just think it would possibly be an issue when they have people connecting and then more "computer literate" people scanning the networks for files, boredom (malice), etc.

    • SPAM haven? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PornMaster ( 749461 )
      I doubt that the city would run its own mail servers... if they don't filter port 25, drive-by spamming would be facilitated, and if they do, the utility of the service will be dramatically affected for the "common man", unless everyone gets a webmail account.
      • Do like other wireless ISPs do. Don't filter port 25, but also don't offer POP/SMTP. Users who want these services should get them from their own ISP.
  • ...at least in cities like Seattle. Chicago should be about the same.

    see, theres already a bazillion free wifi hotspots. get a group to map 'em out (if they havent already), and bingo. you have free wireless almost anywhere you go.

    http://www.seattlewireless.net/ [seattlewireless.net]

  • Left vs Right flamewar in T- ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:41PM (#11894384)
    To sum up 90% of the upcoming posts
    "This will show those monopolistic telcos"
    "Those monopolistic telcos will stop this, damn them"
    "This stifles business and is a wicked commie plot"
    "Its socialism not communism, you dumb rednecks"
    "This is all Bush's fault"
    "Why are you bringing politics into this"
    "Local government should stay out of the business sector"
    "You mean like public roads"
    "This is a even better/worse plan than Philly, they really suck/know what they're doing"
    "Will they use OSS?"

  • bad idea (Score:5, Informative)

    by Menotti M ( 846491 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:44PM (#11894410) Homepage
    As Dave Molta's article states
    http://informationweek.mobilepipeline.com/ 60300027

    muni WiFi is a bad idea. Many here are mentioning the waste of money, etc. But what about the choice of technology? The article says they want to deploy this with Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi was NOT designed as a wide area network technology. You only have 11 channels to work with and, realistically, only 3 because they overlap in the spectrum.

    What about interference with user's home networks? It's bad enough that every Joe Computer has a wireless gateway set up in his room, but now those default-configured devices are going to suffer from an a/b/or g network flyin around the whole city.

    The limitations of WiFi will cause a terrible quality of service, probably equating to slow dial up speeds with many disconnects as multiple users are trying to share this limited bandwidth.

    Not to mention that it is difficult to imagine that the government is actually going to support and maintain this deployment as they should. Seems as if they are discussing setup costs and not Total Cost of Ownership.
    • Where I'm from, Calgary Alberta (Canada!), we have a 'wireless city' http://wifinetnews.com/archives/001821.html [wifinetnews.com]

      Or at least, so is the 'hype', but let me explain how it is:

      - Only a small portion of the city is, notably a portion of the downtown ocre
      - Any one MAC address is only allowed one hour online at a time.

      I realize the article is proposing more then what we have up here, but I was pretty impressed with what my city has done.

      Basically, I can go out for lunch, and avoid some bad legal problems if I

  • That is all I need (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Emperor Cezar ( 106515 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:44PM (#11894420) Journal
    I live in Chicago and this is a BAD idea. All I need is one of the MOST corrupt governments in the U.S. competing the private telecoms out of business and for all intents and purposes controlling the INTERNET in Chicago.

    • Re:That is all I need (Score:4, Insightful)

      by elmegil ( 12001 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:52PM (#11894499) Homepage Journal
      competing the private telecoms out of business

      Hahahahahahahahahaha >coff<

      Now, tell me exactly how much real competition there is among the private telecoms? Let's see, my local wired provider in Chicago is....SBC Ameritech! Hm. Who else? Nobody whose name I know, that's for sure.

      I have DSL. Not SBC DSL either. But guess who provides the wire for that, too? Yep.

      Where is that competition? Oh...I get it. You mean that if they have to face competition, they'll go out of business. About Damn Time, I'd say.

    • Re:That is all I need (Score:5, Funny)

      by Martin Blank ( 154261 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:53PM (#11894506) Homepage Journal
      No, no... It will be OK. Mayor Daley said that he was going to clean corruption out of City Hall.

    • Exactly. Daley and his cronies can't pave city streets without massive fraud and horrible delays and plenty of taxpayer waste. Millenium park was 5 years late and hundreds of millions over-budget.

      Why does anyone think municipal wi-fi will work at all, especially in Chicago? Corruption and waste will run rampant, just as it does in most other city services. As hard as it is to believe, Federal programs are typically models of efficiency and integrity compared to almost any urban government program - in Chic

  • As long as those damn kids dont......... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Ossus_10 ( 844890 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:46PM (#11894434)
    use this new network for *GASP* playing VIOLENT GAMES! http://news.com.com/Illinois+seeks+to+restrict+vio lent+games/2100-1043_3-5593248.html [com.com]
  • I'm assuming Bean Town's WiFi will be called Bean Net, or maybe Bean WiFi.

    Givin that, won't it be great fun to read about the latest gang cruising around in their warganging initiation?

  • fun (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Menotti M ( 846491 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:49PM (#11894469) Homepage
    with the very likely (lack) of security on this deployment, every wardriving script-kiddie who wants to cause some havoc will be there having a grand ol time.

    See you all in Chicago!

  • Chicago War-chalking back in 2002 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MisterLawyer ( 770687 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {reywalekim}> on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:49PM (#11894473)
    For the past three years I've lived in downtown Chicago, right by Navy Pier. About two years ago when war-chalking was popular, I didn't have too much trouble finding open wireless networks. [wired.com]

    That lasted for about 6 months. Then December came, along with about a foot of snow. This covered up all the warchalking runes and made finding open networks a little harder.

    Unfortunately, war-pissing never caught on, and war-chalking has become much less popular (see, e.g.: ) so I bought a little handheld wireless sniffer, and it's worked ok for those times I was desperate for an internet connection. But a municipal wireless network would be 100 times better. It would save a lot of time having to sniff around, and would have much more consistent and reliable coverage.

  • As a staunch Libertarian... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Slur ( 61510 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:51PM (#11894488) Homepage Journal
    ... I wholeheartedly support plans by cities to deploy their own wireless networks. Especially those cities and counties that private companies have failed to adequately supply. The market has become too uptight and created an artificial scarcity, and it needs competition from municipalities to shake it out of its complacency.

    The new regulations outlawing such measures are completely brain-dead, and do harm to the competitive environment while espousing "libertarian" values. Hell, even the venerable CATO Institute has become nothing more than a shill for corporations, and lost its ability to be objective and realistic.

    From my perspective as a staunch Libertarian it is becoming increasingly clear that mixed economies provide the best soil for healthy competition, and that they do a better job of supporting the human and technological infrastructure required to foster a healthy economy.

    Now, let the real competition begin!

    • You're no libertarian (Score:3, Insightful)

      by geekee ( 591277 )
      No real libertarian would support a govt based wireless muni network. The reason telcom companies are not providing metro WiFi access is they are a lot smarter than local politicians. They are waiting for WiMax deployment, which is the right solution for the problem. When your local govt wastes your money on a WiFi network, you'll be stuck with it while other comunities are get much better perfomance with WiMax for a lot lower cost. No telcom company will want to compete with your "free" but lousy network.
      • In a big city, you're going to get worse performance from Wi-Max due to the shared bandwidth over a large area. Telcos are already deploying comparable technology, in the form of EV-DO. Verizon has this running already in a number of cities, and it's great. The only problem is that it's $80 a month. This could be provided by the government for far less, and would be a great advantage to living in the area.
        • The only problem is that it's $80 a month. This could be provided by the government for far less, and would be a great advantage to living in the area.

          Slightly cheaper to the people who would use it (you and I), infinitely more expensive to those who don't want it.

          • They could easily charge the users for the service and recover their costs. You may have lots of libertarian reasoning, but the empirical fact is that municipal utilities cost less. I live in Austin, TX, where we have municipal electricty. I pay far less for electricity than other big cities in Texas because of it, and there is no taxpayer subsidy. Other cities that have municipal water, cable television, gas, and internet service pay far less, and without taxpayer subsidy than cities that don't. If yo
            • This may be true, but a lot of the comparison's I see are not apples to apples. Many of these municipal utilities, ARE indirectly subsidized. It IS clear that unregulated monopolies (whether government or private) will be less efficient than a competitive setting. The problem is, wireless removes the primary barrier to telecom competition (control of the last-mile loop). Why do we want to prop up a dying monopoly that is finally BECOMMING competitve due to changes in technology?
              • It's not at all clear that government is less efficient in a natural monopoly setting than private competition. Take electricity for example. It costs twice as much to run two sets of wires to every house, so simply from the standpoint of construction and maintence, private competition is going to cost twice as much to operate. Now even though it costs twice as much to operate, consumers might pay less in that scenario than an unregulated monopoly which would simply charge what the market will bear. A m
        • Can't WImax cell sizes be increased and decreased depending on the density of the area.Thus solving this problem.
      • No real libertarian would support a govt based wireless muni network.

        Real libertarians can support prudent and limited subsidies for internet access for the same reason they can support public libraries and public education: voting is a fundamental right, but it only is meaningful or workable if voters are educated and informed.

        Of course, by "real libertarian" I'm assuming you mean a person who would like to see libertarian principles applied in the real world, and not just in badly written novels.

        No t
    • I see that someone else already chimed in but seeing your post marked Insightful shows that too many people here have no concept of what a Libertarian is.

      The first rule is that Libertarians do not look to the government for a solution that can be provided by the people, which in turn means companies/corporations.

      We do not look to take money at gunpoint from another just so we have something without fully paying for it.

      No what you are is this offshoot that calls itself Libertarian but is nothing more than

  • Good for the cities, bad for the rest of us. (Score:3, Informative)

    by mc6809e ( 214243 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:53PM (#11894512)
    State and local taxes are deductable. Any city that provides a service like this is getting a tax subsidy from the rest of us.

    So, from a strictly self-interest stand point, cities should continue to provide more and more services, since that will lower their overall Federal tax burden.

    Of course, that means more federal debt and eventually more taxes for the rest of us.

    So the next time you wonder how it is a city can have high taxes and not be hurt much economically, remember that the federal government is making it possible.

    This entry [blogspot.com] by an economist comments on the situation in New York City.

  • I speak from experience..... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I go to a Univerity of Wisconsin School. Our on Campus apartments were built before running CAT5 was popular. The school's solution was to put in 802.11B! Let me tell you how you make a T1 fed to your building act like a dial-up. I do average about 3K here, it's awesome! Nevermind that all of the people here with Windowz machines spread virus' like the plauge! And you have to remember this is with a community of about only 400 students.
  • Why aren't telcom companies providing muni WiFi?

    Because it's a stupid idea. WiFi was designed for short range LANs. The telcom companies are waiting for 802.16 (WiMax) to provide broadband wireless access. When the low power version is available (802.16e), they'll support mobile as well.
  • Government should set the minimums for society. This won't be the best connection ever, but it will be a connection.

    The bar was originally set by libraries offering internet access. Now the government (Chicago) is just raising it slightly indicating that every citizen should have free and clear access.

    This won't do anything to dissuade me from giving up my DSL because I like having someone to call and yell out when it isn't working (and all I need to do is reset the modem... but at 6am, I'm not all that

  • Muni WiFi is Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)

    by cjsnell ( 5825 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @05:57PM (#11894542) Journal

    Folks,

    Put aside your geekiness for a minute (I'm a huge WiFi user, too) and consider the unfairness and inefficiency of government-supplied Wifi.

    My argument against municipal Wifi is two-fold:

    1) Internet access is a "nice to have" convienence but hardly a public necessity (like roads, schools, etc.). By creating a government-sponsored network, you inevitably impose taxes on many folks who will never use, nor want, a wireless network.

    2) Government rarely does anything right, except create more government. I don't know about Chicago but my city (San Antonio, TX) can't even fill the countless deep potholes that are springing up everywhere. Do you trust these people to deliver you a secure, fast, stable network? Do you want to pay *THEM* to deliver this network?

    Wireless networks are best left to commercial entities. If the city government wants to do something to promote a private, low-cost municipal network, lobby your city council members to provide free/reduced-cost access of utility/light poles to the deploying company in exchange for subsidized access fees for the poor (or better yet, low fees all across the board).

    • Re:Muni WiFi is Wrong (Score:2, Interesting)

      by grapes ( 142628 )
      1) Internet access is a "nice to have" convienence but hardly a public necessity (like roads, schools, etc.). By creating a government-sponsored network, you inevitably impose taxes on many folks who will never use, nor want, a wireless network.

      So, should government not provide public libraries? Museums? Parks? Most people don't use those, and you are inevitably imposing taxes on those that can't read and don't want books.

      Private enterprise would probably create a technologically superior network, tr

    • Re:Muni WiFi is Wrong (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dubl-u ( 51156 ) *
      Internet access is a "nice to have" convienence but hardly a public necessity (like roads, schools, etc.).

      I disagree with that. Schools and libraries are essential to the functioning of a democracy because they help prepare voters. But schools and libraries aren't enough; voters also need fresh information and avenues for participation. This last election showed that the internet is shifting power back to individual citizens, but we'll never see the full flowering of that until access is pretty much unive
    • Unfortunately, the parent's point about "wireless networks being best left to commercial entities" is really only applicable where competition exists! There is no (real) competition for the regional "baby bell" telcos, because they own the infrastructure, and are regulated (badly) by the various state corporation commissions. The local municipalities are at the mercy of whatever timeframe and limits the telcos place on upgrading that infrastructure. OTOH, most cable companies are regulated at the municip
  • To me, it looks like this is just more of Mayor Daley's posturing against Govenor Rob Blagojevich. Just another chapter in the rich history that is Chicago politics. I'll believe it when I see it. Or more accurately, can access it (freely). Luke.....

  • if 802.11b, then I am fine with it ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @06:02PM (#11894593) Journal
    as long as they accept that other are in that space as well. If they pull a fast one and try to claim eminent(sp) domain, well, that is BS.

    11b is nice and slow and CHEAP. There is new technology being developed that is much faster, able to penetrate buildings, etc. etc. But with Chicago doing a low-end cheap system, they set the bar for what they are willing to accept from somebody else. Hopefully, they will also resist the urge to offer monopolies. This can be a win-win all the way around.

  • Is city-sponsored wireless really a good idea? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kphrak ( 230261 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @06:10PM (#11894663) Homepage

    I know I'm going to get some flames for this because quite a lot of Slashdotters seem to believe that everything should be free, but I'm not absolutely comfortable with free city-sponsored wireless.

    Telecom companies rank just below HMOs on the vileness scale, but having Chicago put up wireless APs everywhere is not going to result in a socialist Internet dream where the city pays for your pr0n downloads. What it does result in is some lucky corporation's dream, where everyone in Chicago pays the city (some more indirectly than others) to pay a single contracted telecom to give them wireless Internet.

    Not everyone is going to use this service. That's OK, not everyone uses the school system, but we all pay for it...but in this case, I'm not even sure that a clear majority in Chicago use the Internet. And even if they do, some use it much less than others. Most Slashdotters probably would have a hard time going back from their broadband accounts to $10/mo dialup, but the average person who checks their AOL email once a day is probably under no pressure to switch anytime soon.

    Furthermore, due to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [penny-arcade.com], which I firmly believe in, I expect the city would end up having to do (or contract out) major security work to handle people with too much time on their hands. The issue of censorship comes up as well -- the city now acts as the ISP for a host of activities that may include breaking Illinois state law. This can probably be ironed out, but why deal with it at all?

    As much as I love getting stuff free, I have to say that this screams "boondoggle". The potential waste and corruption (this is the Chicago city government we're talking about) of a deal like this, as well as the small number of potential beneficiaries, makes me very dubious.

    What do I like better? Portland's Personal Telco Project [personaltelco.net]. It's not sponsored by (read: under control of) the city government. It's done by private contributors who choose their own ISP, allowing a wider range of solutions to be chosen, are responsible for the cells of their own network, and -- apparently -- make group decisions by consensus as opposed to mandate (as the city would be the primary controller of a municipal network, I'm guessing most decisions would be by mandate of some controlling committee). There is also less potential for fuckwad-related damage, since the people who put these up generally are nerds or assisted by nerds who know what they're doing. In short, it's much more decentralized and, IMHO, essentially more free.

    Of course, it's not as easy to get city-wide municipal Internet the Personal Telco way as it is to simply tell all your fellow citizens to pay for a luxury that you want.

  • I'm not concerned about the legislation at all. Any wireless network will not be operated by the City. It will go to a city contractor--like everything else here in Chicago. You have to remember that Chicago is a city where you have contractors that do nothing but sit in trucks [suntimes.com].

    I am also not worried about the telco's blocking a city-wide network. If Daley can completely ignore the FAA [aopa.org], I think he can handle the telco's and the FCC.

  • As a resident (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gillbates ( 106458 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @06:19PM (#11894755) Homepage Journal

    of the Chicagoland area, I've learned a few things about the way things are done in Chicago:

    1. Mayor Daley almost always gets his way.
    2. If this goes through, you can bet it would be nigh illegal to run a "non-authorized" WAP within city limits. Or you'd have to pay hefty licensing fees to the city for the privelege.
    3. You can also be likewise assured that coffee shop owners and the like would have to pay a tax for their customers' use of WiFi. And no, they wouldn't be allowed to setup their own WiFi either, as this would be against rule 2.

    Granted, I like the idea of a city-wide WiFi network. But I know that if Chicago adopted WiFi, Daley and Co. would find some way to poison the well and ruin everything for everybody.

  • This isn't the free muni WiFi you were looking for (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheAwfulTruth ( 325623 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @06:20PM (#11894770) Homepage
    After Ring the Fing A, it looks like their "pondering" is in the direction of letting some as yet unknown company rent space on their light and electric poles.

    Said company would charge people say 20$ a month for a password to connect to the service (or something like that) and said company would pay the city "rent" for the pole space.

    This is in no way the free municipal wifi that people are daydreaming of. This is merely a city trying to find a way to cash in on the wifi craze by renting their property.
  • Will they be offering this to anyone that drives into town and turns on their wifi card?

    What about visitors that havent paid local taxes...

    What about the evil 'terrorists' that use the network for evil...

  • Um...Daley... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jameth ( 664111 ) on Wednesday March 09, 2005 @11:01PM (#11896578)
    "It could run into efforts underway now in the state capital by Big Telecom to shut out muni Internet in Illinois."

    Apparently, you are not familiar with Mayor Daley. You see, in the US, the state legislates the city, but in Chicago, the city legislates the state.

  • Obsolete in 3 years! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by loose electron ( 699583 ) on Thursday March 10, 2005 @12:32AM (#11897082) Homepage
    This "wonderful idea" for 802.11 hot spots, which are essentially coverage circles that are 30 meters in diameter will be obsolete in 3 years.

    Anybody trying to use 802.11 (aka WiFi) to cover an entire city must be either clueless in technology or a politician.

    The proper solution for this is just now emerging, in the form of 802.16a (aka WiMax) which gives coverage circles larger than 5Km, which can be used to provide city wide coverage, without too much pain. (Google it, there's plenty of stuff out there.)

    WiFi was designed to get rid of that last 30 meters of Ethernet cable. and for that it serves well. People have been trying to use it in so many applications that it was never designed for.

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