Because of how they are implementing proposals for "free WiFi" service, governments are replicating all the past problems of cable franchising.
Silicon Valley is a good example. Cisco and IBM are leading a group of other companies in offering "free" WiFi under government auspices. The free is only up to 1 megabit, and you’ll need "special equipment" (I assume an antenna booster) to get it indoors. Want anything faster? You’ll have to pay.
The corporate sponsors, who call themselves Silicon Valley Metro Connect, are awfully ambiguous in how much this will cost. Uh, $75-250 million? I’m not writing a check based on that kind of budget estimate, are you?
I want broadband competition as much as anyone. (The original post, at Steve Gilliard’s blog, illustrates the point with what looks like a very old Linksys router. So I’m showing the 100 Mbps Netgear router we use here.)
I want unlicensed frequencies fully exploited, and I want more of them. But there are problems here:
- Government sponsorship can mean government control, over what
you do with the resource. We’re already hearing calls to censor
government-sponsored WiFi just as library and school WiFi are censored. - The unlicensed frequencies are not a "franchise" that can be given
away on an "exclusive" basis. They are open to all, based only on your
equipment meeting government power specs. There should be nothing
stopping other companies, and consortia, from covering the same
territory with similar or better service.
Yes, this is better than the cable-phone duopoly. So far. But it may
not turn out that way. And what we need, in terms of bits, is what
Samuel Gompers wanted for organized labor. More.
“Yes, this is better than the cable-phone duopoly. ”
I think that’s kind of the end of the discussion. Government solutions are always going to be mediocre at best (kind of goes with democracy). The good news is that the door is still wide open for commercial interests to offer a better solution. This is a case where something is better than nothing and I for one can live with that.
“Yes, this is better than the cable-phone duopoly. ”
I think that’s kind of the end of the discussion. Government solutions are always going to be mediocre at best (kind of goes with democracy). The good news is that the door is still wide open for commercial interests to offer a better solution. This is a case where something is better than nothing and I for one can live with that.