State bill could kill city Wi-Fi
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Backers of a Philadelphia Wi-Fi project are worried that a bill going through the state legislature would spike a plan to blanket the city with free or inexpensive wireless access. [Broadband Blog]
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There could be trouble when metro-scale Wi-Fi systems run in the same areas as unrelated WLANs, but there are ways to minimize the effects of this interference, says columnist Craig. J. Mathias.
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WHATEVER VOICE towns and cities have in their cable television service will be at stake in a bill before the state Legislature tomorrow.
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How cool would this be? Free WiFi for everyone in San Francisco. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom set a goal Thursday of providing free wireless Internet activity in his city.
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Federal and state governments usually promote competition for telecom services, but some states are blocking free Wi-Fi access.
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Private companies only Dublin has abandoned its plan to blanket the city with free Wi-Fi as it thinks it might breach EU law on state aid, and they haven't got the â¬27m it's going to cost anyway.â¦
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EarthLink Inc.&#39;s announcement that it will lay off 900 people is a blow to broadband competition, but some industry followers say it doesn&#39;t signal the end of municipal Wi-Fi.
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The ACLU has complained that EarthLink and Google's proposed public Wi-Fi network in San Francisco doesn't adequately protect freedom of speech and privacy.
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A new report warns that cities considering municipal Wi-Fi shouldn&#8217;t fool themselves into believing that the experience will be as routine as running water, gas and electricity systems.
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Pah - we sneer at your global economies of scale! More dismal news for the US consumer. After the simultaneous failure of Municipal Wi-Fi projects in three major US cities - something we predicted four years ago - faster, cheaper mobile data looks further away than ever.â¦
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Manchester City Council plans free wi-fi zone covering more than 400 square miles.
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EarthLink has backed out of a deal to build San Francisco's free citywide Wi-Fi service.
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What would Benjamin Franklin say? Philadelphia plans citywide free Wi-Fi Internet access for computer users.
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MacCentral - The city of Philadelphia has reached an agreement with Verizon Communications Inc. that will let the municipal government deploy a citywide Wi-Fi network, but a carrier-backed bill that would let incumbent carriers block such projects has been signed into law by Pennsylvania's governor.
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Two key votes on the municipal Wi-Fi project have been postponed and a city leader wants to amend the deal.
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(InfoWorld) - San Francisco is going to kick the tires of an alternative to theÂ citywide Wi-Fi planÂ from EarthLink and Google. The budget analyst of the City and County of San Francisco agreed on Monday to study to financial feasibility of a wireless network paid for and owned by the city. The agency expects to finish its report by December, a representative said at a meeting Monday of the Board of Supervisors' Government Audit and Oversight Committee. The city's Wi-Fi plan and the process of developing it has come under fire from several quarters, not least from some members of the Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Jake McGoldrick formally requested the feasibility study after criticizing the way in which the administration of Mayor Gavin Newsom settled on theÂ EarthLink-Google plan. It calls for a network to be built at no cost to the city and owned by the two service providers. "It really got rammed and jammed and fast-tracked," McGoldrick said in April. If the city owned the network, he believes it would have more control overÂ issues such as user privacyÂ and prompt upgrading of the technology. The analyst's plan to deliver the report by December satisfied McGoldrick, who talked with representatives of the agency at Monday's meeting. The city also expects to wrap up its negotiations with EarthLink and Google in early December, said Brian Roberts, a senior policy analyst for the city's Department of Telecommunications and Information Services. The department has no position on the plan for the feasibility study, he said: The budget analyst's report will give the supervisors more information to decide whether to go with the EarthLink-Google deal, he said. Also Monday, a nonprofit organization said a city-owned network would pay for itself in just over four years. The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) released the results of a feasibility study report that was sought by Media Alliance, an Oakland, California, group that has pushed for broader access to technology. ILSR envisioned San Francisco building the network for an initial capital investment of about $10 million, to be repaid over five years from services revenue. The city would create a nonprofit body to sell access to the network to service providers wholesale. Upgrades would cost about $9 million over ten years, the group said. The plan is similar to onesÂ advocated in some other cities, such as that of the Boston Wireless Task Force. ILSR said its estimates, which in part assume that 10 percent of households and businesses would become paid subscribers at about $15 per month, were conservative. A better plan would be for the city to expand its current 43-mile fiber network to eventually reach all homes, while deploying wireless in certain areas in the meantime, ILSR said. Fiber costs more to deploy but less to maintain. The city didn't provide enough information for a complete analysis of this plan, ILSR said.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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U.S. state and local governments could   lose $8 billion a year in revenue if Congress further restricts   their ability to tax telecommunications services, the National   League of Cities said on Wednesday.