I'm not sure that the key aspect of a city-wide service is the price. Somehow, mysteriously, municipal systems do seem to cost less than wired broadband access; see Chaska's service @ $15.99/month. Yes, it could be subsidized by the city and I would tend to think that's not a good use of tax dollars for more than the short term. I think Comcast broadband costs me $50-60/mo with sneaky pricing that guarantees I pay for the basic cable service they can't avoid sending me when my broadband is live. And note, please, that the service is wired. I know that there are a few nation-wide wireless data networks that cost more for less bandwidth.
To me, though, the real magic is the "city-wide" part of the equation. I don't think enough consideration is given to what will occur once the entire geography is 'on-line'. For a sliver of a hint, consider cell phones. Now that cell-service is ubiquitous, we see people moving to cell as their sole phone service. Highly mobile workers are able to function efficiently on a continent-wide basis. Limited next-generation uses like text messaging applications have appeared. I'm constantly amazed how big ad hoc events like weddings ever got organized before cell phones. Why don't we see more interesting effects of the cell network? Mostly because the bell-heads at the phone companies perpetuate closed networks and propriatary phones so they can gouge us on ring tones, etc. Compare that to your home computer and its broadband Internet connection. Want to do something new and interesting on your computer? Buy some software (or download it for free), install and off you go. You're not locked into Dell software and the Dell add-ons because you have a Dell computer. OK back to WiFi. Once you know you're always 'on' in St. Paul (in addition to other places) good things just happen. Maybe its just one less thing to worry about when starting a small business. Maybe its greater efficiencies for mobile busineses (not to mention city services). Probably its things that we can't imagine but that some entreprenure would be thrilled to create once some basic infrastructure exists. Some arbitraguer will probably make a living off the price spreads between EBay and Mac-Groveland garage sales. ;) I'm sure that coverage will be spotty at first - think back to cell phones again. Not an insurmountable problem. A bigger issue for me is the existance of separate systems in Mpls & St. Paul. Access to both networks via a single account is really going to be critical for truly innovative services to flourish. Hopefully we can get there (and build with that eventuality in mind). Kevin Kevin Marshall Frogtown - W1P4 Message: 9 Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 11:21:54 -0500 From: John Harris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [StPaul] Wired St. Paul To: "St. Paul Issues Forum" <stpaul@mnforum.org> Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > How happy I will be when Saint Paul gets wired! A few cafes in my > neighborhood offer wi-fi, but it will be a huge improvement to offer > this city-wide and available at home. Most of the internet services > I've scoped out are very expensive on a monthly basis, and/or require > year-long contracts or various other inconveniences. Even if the city > charged a nominal fee for this kind of access, it would be a huge > improvement over the options currently available. For those not reading the MPLS board, when this was discussed the price was $20 to $25 a month, i believe. The city of St Paul will most certainly charge for access. Since they will pull from a smaller client base, possible more than MPLS. this also means that if you connect to StPaul.net with your centrino mobile laptop, you will get cut off once you leave st paul, unless you find a free hotspot. > Of course, I'm sure Comcast and Qwest and others will start screaming > that "it's THEIR monopoly" and the city should not be allowed to > compete! Where's the free market when we need it? The city is putting out RFPs to avoid trouble with the contract already in place for the cable companies. At least that is how i intrepret that. The cities negotiated the monopoly which made some sense at the time since someone had to pay for the cities to be wired with cable. While broadband isn't free, it isn't that expensive. I get time warner for $45 a month and used to get quest DSL for $40 to $45 depending on what ISP i used. There are still questions of security and performance with city wide wireless. As with home wireless, if you are not close to a repeater, or signal base, you might not get very good reception. >It is a good deal but not a slam dunk. >John Harris >camden, mpls __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------------------------- JOIN the St. Paul Issues Forum TODAY: http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/ ------------------------------------------------- POST MESSAGES HERE: stpaul@mnforum.org To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
