[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Big debate happened about this at a conference. There's an article about it at CNet.

[turtle777]

So if the conference decides Yes, how would they force them ?

-t

[budster101]

HELL YES! WTF, why not?

FREE your mind and the rest will follow.
FREE your wifi and the porn will flow.

[ManOfSteal]

Sure, that would be nice. Would I use it over my current home network though? No.

[turtle777]

While we're at it, I demand the cities to offer free quality import beer as well.

-t

[budster101]

Where can't you get good quality import beer?

I can get all I want here.

PS: Your signature has a mispilled werd.

There is no comparison between Apple going to Intel and switching coffee brands... that coffee situation is much more serious! People go crazy about that. Don't mess with the coffee.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by budster101

Where can't you get good quality import beer?
I can get all I want here.

Fre ? I said FREE !

Heck, where do you live. I'll relocate !

Originally Posted by budster101

PS: Your signature has a mispilled werd.

Huh ?

-t

[budster101]

Oh, my bad, angst... pfft. Gotta get sleep.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Some city in Florida tried it and 27 people used it. Yes that is the real number.

[sminch]

i don't get it - why the hell should they? do they provide other completely unnecessary free services for the wealthy folks who would otherwise have to pay for their wifi? and what's "free", anyway? do you mean paid for through increased taxes? so everyone has to pay for my wifi now? wtf???

sminch

[Krusty]

City-wide Wi-Fi would be great

Instead of døuchebags on cell phones causing accidents, we could have døuchebags surfing the web while they drive.

Seriously ... I think it'd be a bit of a security nightmare. Clever hackers stealing personal info from people's machines could supplant the traditional, violent muggers.

[budster101]

You have got to be kidding me. 27 people? Were they the only people who new how to use computers? Florida is mostly OLD PEOPLE getting ready to die...

Free as in with a value added tax. Just think what that would do to SBC? They would be crushed with all the Voice over IP people jumping on the bandwagon...

MacNN could go Video Confrerence Board... yikes. Never mind.

-

[budster101]

Only Windows users would be virtually mugged, so who cares?

[sminch]

Only Windows users would be virtually mugged, so who cares?

hmmm, very true... bring it on, for sh!+s and giggles!

sminch

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I don't see why they should, I mean it would mean the end of most ISP's and Phone companies, not that that is a bad thing really.

[Kenneth]

I heard Seattle does... right?

[doucy2]

that is def a true comment about flordia they are all
a completely wifi cit would be great weather it is free or not it would def be worth it

[iMOTOR]

Several cities in Southern California have free wifi districts, downtown Long Beach and Downtown Riverside come to mind, but I know there's others.

[starman]

Sure. We need a whole town of spammers.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by turtle777

While we're at it, I demand the cities to offer free quality import beer as well.

-t

You are a GENIUS!!!

[Hawkeye_a]

I think for local governments to jump onto the wifi bandwagon is not a good idea right now. It'll do away with competition and offer a service that wont advance as the wireless technologies have in the past.

I think government's roles as far as the 'internet' goes should be to steadily and consistently raise the bar for internet connectivity in their regions. What does that mean ? I think instead of adopting the best technology out there and doing away with business built on those 'new' technologies, is coutner productive and rather expensive, so governments should consider making dial-up access free, in their regions and leave the premium products such as wifi and broadband for those willing to pay for it.

That way, everyone will have access to the internet i ntheir homes and things such as wireless and broadband can be charged for since they are, currently anyway, high end products and services.

Down the line, when broadband experiences the same penetration as dial-up, governments can opt to make broadband and wifi and other such technologies standard in their regions.

But yeah...going wifi from the get go, will be very very expensive and could inhibit private research into the field. So in the spirit of having information available to everyone in a particular region, i think dial up should be free, and wifi (at present) be subsidized at most.

Cheers

[Super Mario]

Free internet is great any time anywhere.

[JoshuaZ]

It'd be nice, but its not a necessity. You can usually find one anyways... if you try.

[OB1]

This nice lady thinks it's a good idea.

[d4nth3m4n]

link to cnet article?

[scaught]

i think most communities and cities could do better things with their money.

wow. i feel old.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by scaught

i think most communities and cities could do better things with their money.
wow. i feel old.

You are right:

Originally Posted by turtle777

I demand the cities to offer free quality import beer as well.

-t

[wdlove]

No, because it would just meant that they would raise property taxes. We would be paying for all those that don't own property.

[ghporter]

Anything a city provides "for free" has to be paid for somehow. As the Florida experiment points out, this type of service is probably not universally desired, so the city, using taxpayer funds, is paying for something that only some people want or will use.

As an alternative, I'd say that cities should encourage service providers to set up wireless access throughout the city, probably by providing some sort of tax concession (reducing the amount of tax the provider pays for the privelege of doing business in the city). Service providers could provide the wireless service as part of some other utility arrangement, tying it to a phone bill, power bill, etc. While the tax concession might look like the same thing as funding a system with taxpayer money, it's not-the provider would not be in the picture and thus not be providing ANY money to the city without the deal. In this model the service is available everywhere in town (and may be the only Internet access most people in town use), but only those people who use it will have to pay for it.

An example of this on a small scale is the "Freedom Link" wireless service SBC offers. As an SBC DSL subscriber, I can get unlimited connection time on Freedom Link hotspots (at Barnes and Noble book stores, for example) for an additional $1.95 a month. Not too bad (particularly when compared to the "a la carte" fee structure for Freedom Link alone), and for many people it can be an exceptionally good deal.

[SVass]

Originally Posted by Kenneth

I heard Seattle does... right?

No, but the county's branch libraries do have wi-fi at taxpayer's expense. They have free access to databases like Consumer's Union and Ancestry.com. They even have magazine subscriptions, books, and dvds available for checkout. Should we close the libraries? sam

[ReggieX]

No, it's not necessary.

[Kevin Moon]

No, it would cost a lot of money just to keep everything running and that money has to come from somewhere. I think if cities are going to offer it then it should be a paid service. I also think that a city should only deploy wifi access in public places or if there are no high speed internet providers or limited number of providers. There are cities that the cable and phone companies continue to promise to wire for high speed net but those companies drag their feet on the deployment end. Yet these are the same companies that fight when towns that are fed up decide to go it alone. Really depends on the situation as to whether a city should deploy or not.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally Posted by SVass

No, but the county's branch libraries do have wi-fi at taxpayer's expense. . Should we close the libraries? sam

That is paid for by USF fees. Any expansion of a wireless network on a city or neighborhood wide grid would not qualify for allocation of those funds. You'd pay a separate tax levied by the city, county, or state or funds would come out of some other existing budget.

So no, wireless for everyone is stupid and wasteful given the cost of the current technology required to put the program in place. The majority of the crowd in here may be in favor of it but MacNN is not representative of normal level computer users and definitely not representative of the general public. The geek quotient is far too high around here.
There would also be security, privacy, and liability issues that would be taken on by the city which would outweigh the benefit of the program and would cause the cost to spiral upward from the original estimate of running it.

Anyone who voted yes is wrong.

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

Only 24 commies voted red so far but still more than those who voted blue.

[macroy]

Doesn't Philly have plans to do this??

http://wireless.engadget.com/entry/1234000047039436/

[Krusty]

I don't know where people are getting the idea that a major drawback of Wi-Fi is expense. As with Cable, water lines, power lines, and phone lines, once the infrastructure is built, maintenance would be nominal. It wouldn't cost $50 per household per month the way that individual, privatize high-speed costs private citizens. And no, wdlove, it does NOT have to mean a rise in property taxes. Local governments have many taxation tools at their disposal (from raises in fees to county parks to , say, a sales tax hike of a quarter or half percent). The county government where I live actually DROPPED the property tax rate during the late 90s (due to skyrocketing real estate values) and RAISED the sales tax on eating out at restaurants by 1% when they needed to requisition more funds earlier this year.

I still think its a dumb idea right now for a LOT of reasons, but you guys crying wolf about property tax hikes or exorbitant costs are speaking out your backsides with FUD you just made up. It WOULD cost something, but there is no reason to think it couldn't be paid for in a creative way that actually puts most of the burden on the people who actually USE it. (how 'bout public transportation as a model ... technically subsidized by the government but with expenses heavily tilted toward people who use it more, buy monthly passess etc.).

[Captain Obvious]

Originally Posted by Krusty

I don't know where people are getting the idea that a major drawback of Wi-Fi is expense. As with Cable, water lines, power lines, and phone lines, once the infrastructure is built, maintenance would be nominal. It wouldn't cost $50 per household per month the way that individual, privatize high-speed costs private citizens.

I still think its a dumb idea right now for a LOT of reasons, but you guys crying wolf about property tax hikes or exorbitant costs are speaking out your backsides with FUD you just made up. It WOULD cost something, but there is no reason to think it couldn't be paid for in a creative way that actually puts most of the burden on the people who actually USE it. (how 'bout public transportation as a model ... technically subsidized by the government but with expenses heavily tilted toward people who use it more, buy monthly passess etc.).

Well, I wasn't talking about hundreds of millions of dollars in cost. But for a small city I would guess it wouldn't be any cheaper than a half million annually on top of the initial investment of setting up the hardware which would be costly. You'd need to replace hardware, pay repair people, network technicians, phone support people and they'd all be union. The bigger the city the larger the staff required. A city with a spread out population like Los Angeles would be broke setting up a system like this.
And if a city does this they would have to provide some comparable service in less affluent areas where people who are not as technology oriented live to avoid law suits. Even if this service isn't utilized to its full potential if at all.

Everything you just said really points to the fact that this idea is best suited for private entities to set up. Charging fees, shifting the costs to areas who utilize the service, and tracking subscriptions, etc., done within the bureaucracy of a city government would be more expensive and less efficient to pull off. Its not the huge expense relative to other city services but rather it would be a dumb expense. A half million added to a parks activities or afterschool program budget would accomplish a lot more.

If a city wants to get into the business of dispersing technology to the unconnected they would be smart to find a company that recycles computers and offers them at a lower cost. If they promised to move an X amount of units be selling them to citizens they could probably negotiate a really good price. Then set up a free dial up service which would be extremely cheap to do and they could assign and track accounts through the public school or library system so they could put names to users.

[Xeo]

From a security standpoint it seems like a bad idea. I guess as it stands anyone who wants to do something illegally only needs to go to the nearest hotspot and go for it, but city wide would mean hackers and other internet criminals could use it from their home and do whatever they want. Just seems like a bad idea.

[shabbasuraj]

Internet should be free for everyone on earth.

[budster101]

What is stopping them now?

[Athens]

I think free wifi in city parks is a def yes, free entire city coverage if its speed limited to say 10k which allows for sites and email but not mass downloading and allows ADSL and Cable providers to provide a service still worth buying. If it was free highspeed wireless that would be bad for the Cable/Phone companies.

[Athens]

Originally Posted by Xeo

From a security standpoint it seems like a bad idea. I guess as it stands anyone who wants to do something illegally only needs to go to the nearest hotspot and go for it, but city wide would mean hackers and other internet criminals could use it from their home and do whatever they want. Just seems like a bad idea.

Easy to fix, a registration for use. A valid credit card required to self registration, those that dont have one register in person at city hall with ID. This prevents kids from using it and keeps a record of users.

[budster101]

Why not have a National ID then?

[Athens]

Originally Posted by budster101

Why not have a National ID then?

Birth Certificates/ Drivers Licenses/ Social Insurance, Social Security cards.. We have enough ID's. How does national ID relate to this topic?