WHERE'S MY FREE WI-FI?
[SOURCE: Slate, AUTHOR: Tim Wu]
[Commentary] The basic idea of offering Internet access as a public service is
sound. The problem is that cities haven't thought of the Internet as a form of
public infrastructure that -- like subway lines, sewers, or roads -- must be
paid for. Instead, cities have labored under the illusion that, somehow,
everything could be built easily and for free by private parties. That illusion
has run straight into the ancient economics of infrastructure and natural
monopoly. The bottom line: City dwellers won't be able to get high-quality
wireless Internet access for free. If they want it, collectively, they'll have
to pay for it. By 2005, it became clear that major cities didn't really want to
build out Wi-Fi networks as public works projects. Instead, places like
Philadelphia and San Francisco announced "private/public" partnerships. That
meant giving a private company the right to build a wireless network and try to
make money off of it. Often, this simply meant giving a company like Earthlink
the rights to install Wi-Fi devices on street lamps and charge citizens for
access. The cities then washed their hands of the issue of success or failure.
The result, as this summer has made clear, has been telecom's Bay of Pigsa
project the government wanted to happen but left to underqualified private
parties to deliver. Firms like Earthlink promised too much, and the cities have
stood by and watched as the firms trying to build Wi-Fi systems have twisted
and died on the beachhead. The lesson here is an old one about the function of
government. When it comes to communications, the United States relies on a
privateer system: We depend on private companies to perform public callings.
That works up to a point, but private industry will build only so much. Real
public infrastructure costs real public money. We already know that, in the
real world, if you're not willing to invest in infrastructure, you get what we
have: crumbling airports, collapsing bridges, and broken levees. Why did we
think that the wireless Internet would be any different?
http://www.slate.com/id/2174858/fr/rss/
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