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!

Philly Giving WiFi a Shot

Philadelphia is attempting bridge the "digital divide". 90% of high income households have high speed internet compared to 25% of lower income households.

This article from www.philly.com discusses the case of Hercules Jones and his previous efforts to reach internet access by traveling for hours on public transportation. The article also addresses a criticism that people may not need or want the access or at least no one has stopped to ask whether or not people want it. I don't really think it should be an issue of want. Building the infrastructures for city wide networks now will thwart future more pressing issues of access. As commerce continues to grow on the internet many products and services may become more difficult to obtain. Also, hard copies of dictionaries, encyclopedias, newspapers (news, current events, politics) may become obsolete.

While a failure to bridge the "digital divide" may have heavier implications in the not-to-distant future, according to Philly.com the mayor of Philadelphia said this about immediate advantages of providing cheap high speed access to lower income households, "poor children can enroll in online after-school programs and use the Internet to help with homework" and, "the network would help people apply for jobs or finish coursework for college."

That's a pretty good start.

Chicago Gives Up On WiFi

The city of Chicago's plans to provide city wide WiFi were scrapped because of the cost. The city was in negotiations with EarthLink, Inc. to build and provide the system.

Because the city realized a large portion of the project would have to be publicly financed, the city backed out of its plans. This is too bad. The digital divide is a big problem and this would have been a great advance in bridging the divide. You can check out a previous post about bringing WiFi to Harlem and the implications of the digital divide right here.