[wirelesstoronto-discuss] NYT editorial - citywide wireless internet projects

[Hanna]

a nice editorial from the NYT last week.  replace "American" with
"Canadian", and "Earthlink" with "Toronto Hydro", and we have a comparable
 commentary that could be applied to our own city's situation.  Toronto
Hydro is sniffing around for buyers, looking for their own 'strategic change
in direction'...i.e. they're not turning a profit, so lofty rhetoric,
potential of its infrastructure, and promises bedamned?

*====================*

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/opinion/29sat4.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

March 29, 2008
Editorial
*Broadening Broadband*
**
The big problem in providing Internet service to rural America is often
called "the last mile" — the difficulty in reaching the smallest communities
and farthest-flung houses and farms. In cities, that problem might be called
"the last block" — the difficulty in reaching every neighborhood, no matter
how poor.

For a while, many American cities, caught up in a tide of technological and
fiscal optimism, promised to try to make Internet coverage available to all
by making it citywide, wireless and low-cost or even free.

That has proved to be harder than it seemed at first. EarthLink, an Internet
provider that was partnering with Philadelphia, has pulled out of a
much-heralded project there, and other service providers are rethinking
similar projects.

EarthLink is calling it a change in strategic direction. What that phrase
means, simply, is where's the profit? It is a reasonable question. But for
the people who have been left without Internet service as municipal wireless
plans have collapsed, there are no reasonable answers, only an
all-too-familiar barrier between them and the information age.

The neighborhoods that most need low-cost, public wireless service now find
themselves largely dependent on Internet access through public libraries.
This may not sound like a terrible thing, but have you seen what's happened
to the budgets — and the operating hours — of public libraries?

To cities and Internet providers, municipal Wi-Fi looked like an ideal
partnership. Philadelphia gave EarthLink free access to utility poles for
mounting wireless routers. EarthLink promised to build hot spots, offer
low-cost residential service and provide still lower-cost access for the
poorest customers.

The costs of building a network turned out to be higher than expected — at a
time when prices for private Internet service were dropping. It also hurt,
in Philadelphia's case, that there was a major change at EarthLink, which
went from being an advocate of municipal Wi-Fi to a company determined to
cut costs.

Broadband service is no longer a luxury. It has become a basic part of the
infrastructure of education and democracy. EarthLink should fulfill the
commitments it made. Even in these tough economic times, cities should keep
pushing municipal Wi-Fi and looking for partners and plans that can make it
a reality.

-- 
hanna

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