Don't Let Muni Wi-Fi - Pimp The Poor For too long in this country, we have used the excuse that "we're helping poor people" to start initiatives that only help the middle and upper class. Muni Wi-Fi totally ignores the fact that the poor don't have equipment in their homes to benefit from such a network. Municipal efforts would better be utilized to influence the business community and help them donate their used computers to needy families. I've been saying this for nine years. When I bring up this idea, everyone looks with a blind stare and go on talking about why government should continue to go into business, competing with businesses that they are taxing. Municipal governments cannot build and maintain wi-fi systems that only benefit targeted segments of the people. Where will the money come from to update the system. Of course, we'll tax everyone, including the working poor who don't have access to the muni wi-fi system. I think strategies like this are disingenuous and misguided. Create the demand for digital divide access by putting technology into the homes that need it and then use municipal influence to leverage cost effective access to current broadband companies. I'm the director of Time Dollar Tutoring (www.timedollartutoring.org). To date, we have placed 5,325 computers in needy homes. In addition, we have redirected 600 tons of computer waste out of our landfills. The majority of the computers came from Corporate America. It can be done. With the support of government, nonprofit groups like ours could placed millions of computers in homes. Now there's a demand that can't be ignored by any company in the Internet access business and municipal officials would have little trouble making the case. Short of doing this, we're just pimping the poor. Calvin Pearce Executive Director Time Dollar Tutoring
Andy Carvin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: A commentary about municipal wi-fi from Stanford Law School's Jennifer Granick on Wired.com... -ac Don't Let Fear Kill Muni Wi-Fi Plans are afoot in Philadelphia and Huntsville, Alabama, as well as my hometown of San Francisco, to provide residents with low-cost or free wireless internet access. It's a great idea whose time has come, like drinking fountains, public toilets and park benches. But last week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that my city's mayor expects a legal challenge from internet service providers like SBC and Comcast, who presumably prefer every San Franciscan to pay a monthly access fee. Obviously, ISPs fear competition from a free service. But people pay for bottled water, music downloads, open-source operating systems and printed versions of free blogs. Companies can still make money in cities with public Wi-Fi by selling even faster service or bundling connectivity with subscriptions, software or support. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,69175,00.html -- ----------------------------------- Andy Carvin Program Director EDC Center for Media & Community acarvin @ edc . org http://www.digitaldivide.net http://katrina05.blogspot.com Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com ----------------------------------- _______________________________________________ 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. Calvin Pearce, Time Dollar Tutoring, P.O. Box 436964, Chicago, IL 60643 773-233-4442 Office, 773-233-4124 Fax, [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.timedollartutoring.org, http://timedollartutoring.blogspot.com/ http://thepublicthinktank.blogspot.com/ _______________________________________________ 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.
