http://wifinetnews.com/archives/007750.html
By Glenn Fleishman
Toledo, Ohio’s mayor has backed away from Wi-Fi plan: The mayor says the
city won’t continue to seek council approval for a $2.2m contract with
MetroFi. The contract would cover five years of service for the city,
and was estimated to be at or near a cost conservation level compared
with current services. MetroFi would spend about $5m to build
advertising-supported free service, with an optional paid, ad-free
offering as elsewhere. The city’s IS director resigned and then was
fired after a confrontation with the mayor over the plan’s leadership.
The mayor is now looking for partners, and won’t “spend taxpayer money.”
Of course, if you have a five-year plan that could be revenue neutral,
you’re risking that it won’t be, but you’re not per se spending taxpayer
dollars; and, no savings from efficiency were calculated.
The parent company of the newspaper covering this story put in a bid
that the city found incomplete; MetroFi won in that round. That firm,
Buckeye CableSystem, says that MetroFi’s solution “is likely to become
obsolete,” and continues by criticizing Wi-Fi as a metro-scale solution.
Well, sure, but what’s the alternative? Mobile WiMax? Maybe next year,
and you need licensed spectrum. And all technology becomes obsolete;
it’s a question of the value over its expected lifetime and whether that
value presents an opportunity by investing now rather than waiting some
period of time. Wi-Fi will get better, and any well designed network
could be upgraded in phases.
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