Google has been sniffing around contributing to Wi-Fi infrastructure for some time. Of course, that drives the Verizons and Time-Warners of the world nuts.
Here Tim Wu writes in Slate Magazine:
about why public-private partnerships are such failures:
... Setting up a large wireless network isn't as expensive as installing wires into people's homes, but it still costs a lot of money. Not billions, but still millions. To recover costs, the private "partner" has to charge for service. But if the customer already has a cable or telephone connection to his home, why switch to wireless unless it is dramatically cheaper or better? In typical configurations, municipal wireless connections are slower, not dramatically cheaper, and by their nature less reliable than existing Internet services. Those facts have put muni Wi-Fi in the same deathtrap that drowned every other company that peddled a new Net access scheme.Today, the limited success stories come from towns that have actually treated Wi-Fi as a public calling. St. Cloud, Fla., a town of 28,000, has an entirely free wireless network. The network has its problems, such as dead spots, but also claims a 77 percent use rate among its citizens. Cities like St. Cloud understand the concept of a public service: something that's free, or near-free, like the local swimming pool. Most cities have been too busy dreaming of free pipes to notice that their approach is hopelessly flawed.
The lesson here is an old one about the function of government. When it comes to communications, the United States relies on a privateer system: We depend on private companies to perform public callings. That works up to a point, but private industry will build only so much. Real public infrastructure costs real public money. We already know that, in the real world, if you're not willing to invest in infrastructure, you get what we have: crumbling airports, collapsing bridges, and broken levees. Why did we think that the wireless Internet would be any different?
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Comments (2)
No public utility is free. Mr. Wu talks about St. Cloud which has a "free" WiFi network. To be fair and truthful he should avoid use of the term "free" and stick to terms like "taxpayer supported" or "publicly funded". This avoids clouding the issue and makes clear that there are costs to born, by somebody. Furthermore it addresses the real issue of who is going to pay for it. My view is some communities and their leaders see benefits which are worth imposing the costs on the taxpayers; while others don't want to charge the taxpayers, and so resort to these public private partnerships.
There is more than one way to provide WiFi to the masses. There are solutions in between outright government provision and overly large public/private partnerships. Mr. Wu touches on it when he mentions getting internet access from your neighbor's WiFi. In my own household we maintain both a cable modem and a DSL line for redundancy's sake. My wife and I both telecommute and cannot afford to be without internet access. Two internet providers insure us access in case one provider has an outage. Right now I pay twice as much and use nary a fraction of the bandwidth available to me. I would love to rent that bandwidth to my neighbors. I don't believe I can lawfully do so. Can I? If that were a legal option I believe that my entire community could have WiFi access since many of my neighbors telecommute and have excess bandwidth as well. A change in the law might be all that is required to provide mass WiFi.
There may be a many, many micro-solutions which address the problem in a different way than my proposal. Together they may address the whole issue of the "last mile" more than completely. Not every macro problem requires a macro solution. A micro solution may be enough to address most of the problem. Additonally, a bevy of micro-solutions will always be more robust and safer than one macro-solution, since the failure of any single part will not lead to the failure of the whole.
1. Goolge inc. has been around for about ten (10) years only.
2. Google Incorporated is a private, public-owned corporation.
3. A "corporation" is basically a "piece of paper" "license" issued by the state (usually delaware) to conduct legal business.
4. A private corporation has no power to "force" anyone to do anything against their. If there are no "customers" "revenue" "sales". Google, inc. will disappear. Google will be bankrupt.
5. The Digital Revolution" started in 1947 with the invention of the transistor. Microchips came later.
6. The Internet, computers, digital revolution is really about freedom. All can play on the internet or not play. There is no law that says anyone has to buy, use or access a computer.
We do after all live in a free-world.
Now with the digital revolution, there is a "flat-world" for all to access the world's ideas, information and knowledge.