At 12:06 AM 6/18/2002 -0700, Elliot Onn wrote: >Sure, true Internet access is not free. You pay taxes to fund your >libraries, schools, and government, which has to maintain the backbone >for our continent. The Internet is not something you can put in your >pocket. It's like TV, yet in Times Square, there is a giant TV >televising NBC's programming. What, you say? For free? If Starbucks puts >in free Internet access, it will cost them all of $30 per store per >month (wholesale purchases). It attracts many customers. They want >customers sitting in their shops and sipping on lattes. Many locations >provide free 802.11b accessible Net access.
Sure, all that bandwidth and those routers and those access points cost money. Someone pays for it, but look at all the money that people spend to advertise their business or service. Free wireless can be a way to promote other things. And doesn't it get interesting when a large entity - be it public or private - believes that it can give away some amount of bandwidth that they bought anyway. Take a city, for example. They may already spend money on economic development. Their Chamber of Commerce may be spending money, too. Paying for installation of access points and bandwidth to generate an infrastructure attractive to businesses and residents is an interesting way to spend money, as compared with printing brochures, hiring directors and answering phones. - John -- general wireless list, a bawug thing <http://www.bawug.org/> [un]subscribe: http://lists.bawug.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
