Municipal Wi-Fi Still Stumbling, Grubbing for Cash

Fri May 4, 2007 5:13PM EDT

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Here in San Francisco we're approaching the two-year anniversary of when municipal Wi-Fi plans were announced. In 2005 Google made its bid to to roll out a network in the city: According to Om Malik, Google said that if its bid was approved, "then it is willing to start the work on the network within weeks." Welcome to 2007, and the only wireless signals I see are mine and my neighbors. According to one story, there are actually three free Wi-Fi nodes (part of a separate plan not operated by Google) in the city, none of which actually work.

What's the hangup? "Economic realities," per this CNet piece. You had to see this coming. When you roll out free wireless service to an entire city, how do you pay for it? Google has previously said such plans would pay for themselves: The muni Wi-Fi users would love Google so much that they would use more Google services, click more Google ads, and so on.

But maybe those notions have been a little optimistic. Last week, Earthlink (which now has 13 citywide Wi-Fi deals) said it would cut back such projects and would only take contracts in bigger cities going forward. The company is currently losing money hand over fist.

Meanwhile, grassroots movements are popping up to try to spur the growth of community-built and managed wireless services, which would come without corporate or government influence, filtering, ads, or taxation. Unsurprisingly, users in some cities that do have free Wi-Fi complain that coverage is poor and the service is often down.

So where do we go from here? More ads? Paid services? No one is really sure, but everyone agrees: Muni Wi-Fi providers want to make a profit on these ventures. Now they just have to figure out how.  

LINK: Facing economic realities of muni Wi-Fi 

Comments on Municipal Wi-Fi Still Stumbling, Grubbing for Cash

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  • 1 Posted by tcligon2000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:57PM EDT Report Abuse

    I think a deeper question is do cities belong in the communications business. I dont know of any cities that provide telephone or cable service why should they provide internet? Let communication companies that do this and know how provide the services they provide and let cities provide the services cities are supposed to provide.

  • 2 Posted by pocketdoom on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:15PM EDT Report Abuse

    To be fair to everyone the cities do need to provide Wifi. Not all people can afford the outrageuos prices that the communication companies are charging for the service. Now that most government services are online the city, state, or federal have to provide access to their services. That is why libraries are providing the computers and internet access. The public has to be able to access the government.

  • 3 Posted by hmjulien3 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:19PM EDT Report Abuse

    What ever became of Fonera? Wouldn't something like that work?

  • 4 Posted by holeymikemfd on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:19PM EDT Report Abuse

    Oh I don't even know if this whole internet thing is gonna take off it seems like a fad.

  • 5 Posted by labrecsf on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:55PM EDT Report Abuse

    I'm not sure I'd want the government to be in charge of our network, either. Inefficiencies become more taxes. What we need are WiFi companies that are the equivalent of Credit Unions and other co-ops, like my mutual-owned insurance company. Sure, there are still costs, but the uncontrolled profit motive is removed. Another part of why prices are outrageous for Internet access is that the communications companies shift the cost of funding for schools, libraries and other public access, over to private subscribers. I guess they figure if the individual can't afford it, they'll just go to the library, but when I was at our library a few weeks ago (I live in a mid-sized town of about 50K), the line waiting for a free PC was ridiculous. I think Internet access is *far* more important than TV access and that is still free (yes, I have friends who still use a roof-top antennae because they object to the obscene cost of cable). ~ ~ hmjulien3: What is Fonera? I haven't heard of that before.

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