Also see: http://www.chaska.net Also of note my recent posts on DoWire about access: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg00232.html http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/msg00212.html
See: http://www.startribune.com/stories/789/4962334.html Chaska offers broadband Net for $16 Steve Alexander, Star Tribune September 3, 2004 CHASKA0903 If the city of Chaska has its way, low-cost, high-speed Internet access might be the newest measure of Minnesota quality of life. Chaska is shaking up high-speed Internet service by offering all 7,000 homes in town a city-run wireless broadband Net access service for $16 a month -- a price that substantially undercuts cable TV and telephone broadband providers serving the city. "We see it as a quality of life issue," said Dave Pokorney, the Chaska city manager who oversees the project, called Chaska.net. "At one time, people needed to have telephone service at home, and now most people want and need Internet service at home. And when you have higher-speed Internet, it's a powerful communications tool." Chaska is one of a handful of U.S. cities, including Philadelphia, that want to offer inexpensive wireless high-speed Internet access. But while Philadelphia is in the early planning stages, Chaska will begin selling its service at the end of September and charge them on their city utility bills. About 1,800 households have been using the service for free as part of a test that began in June. The city says it can break even if 1,500 households subscribe. Wireless community The social implications of cities offering inexpensive broadband Net access are profound. The cities might pressure telephone and cable companies to lower broadband prices, and thus accelerate adoption of fast Net access. In addition, city-offered broadband is likely to change the way consumers use the Internet by making it easier to obtain online information such as news, weather, music, maps and telephone numbers. There also is an opportunity for cities to create tightly-knit communities by using an Internet log-in page as a community bulletin board, an event calendar and a linking point to other city-related Web pages. "One of our city council's goals was to become a connected community," Pokorney said. "It will be such a great communications tool." ... Steven Clift - http://publicus.net - Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Join DoWire: http://e-democracy.org/do Speaking requests: http://publicus.net/speaker.html Watch my BBC World interview: http://publicus.net/media.html _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
