9.28.2007

Who Will Pay For Your WiFi?

An article from Slate passed on to me by America from americainbrokeland talks about the failure of a number of large cities to establish municipal WiFi networks. The article points out that these networks will have to be paid for by someone. So far, private companies like Earthlink have not been able to get the job done.

As more and more services come online such as job application, registration for a variety of services, registration for organizations and schools, control of bank accounts, bill payment, access to important information ranging from driving directions to the requirements to transfer your driver's license from Florida to New York, the need for public access to the Internet becomes essential.

To me, this is something should be paid for by those who use it, in part. But, everyone should have access to it therefore some of the funding should come from taxation and the rest from private funds. It would be very easy to have a simple advertisement pop up when the Internet is accessed from each individual IP address. Such ads would presumably be coveted by businesses and therefore could bring in a fair amount of funds. How much would Apple be willing to pay to have an ad pop up every time some one logs on to the Internet?

Let's get crackin!

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