Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Many of the installments of our ongoing ”Problems in Public Utility Paradise” series here at the TLF have discussed the multiple municipal wi-fi failures of the past few years. Six or so years ago, there was quixotic euphoria out there regarding the prospects for muni wi-fi in numerous cities across America — which was egged [...]
Congressmen working on national intelligence and homeland security either don’t know how to secure their own home Wi-Fi networks (it’s easy!) or don’t understand why they should bother. If you live outside the Beltway, you might think the response to this problem would be to redouble efforts to educate everyone about the importance of personal [...]
As we’ve noted here before in our ongoing series on “Problems in Public Utility Paradise,” municipal wi-fi experiments and local government fiber investments don’t have a very impressive track record. The Philadelphia experiment, which I have discussed here before many times, has been particularly instructive. As Dan P. Lee documented in this spectacular Philadelphia magazine [...]
For some time now here at the TLF, we have been documenting the track record of various government-owned or subsidized utility projects — municipal wi-fi projects, locally-owned telecom ventures, city or state fiber projects, and so on. We’ve attempted to see if the rhetoric matches the reality when it comes to the grandiose promises made [...]
Over at DrewClark.com, earlier today I reported today that television networks – which in recent years have had a strained relationship with local broadcasters on a variety of fronts – joined with the National Association of Broadcasters in calling for a time out on the politically simmering issue of “white spaces.” Here’s the start of [...]
Boynton Beach, Florida’s experiment with municipal wi-fi has ended. [Add it to the list of recent failures]. According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: There’s a roadblock in Boynton Beach‘s information superhighway. The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency decided this month it has no more money for free wireless Internet service in its district. Boynton Beach was [...]
I posted an essay last month about some possible non-regulatory solutions to the problem of porn on planes that I predicted might develop once airlines started rolling out in-flight Internet access. Some respondants to that essay argued this was likely a non-problem because few people would actually view porn in public. Unfortunately, a few incidents [...]
Portland’s muni wi-fi experiment has failed. [Add it to the list of failures]. According to Broadband Reports, taxpayers are going to be on the line for $60K: Portland had high hopes of being one of those cities where citywide wireless networks might actually work but those hopes did not pan out. Earlier this summer, Wi-Fi [...]
February 13, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
