I’m sure that the pro-municipalization movement will be buzzing today about the front-page Wall Street Journal story entitled, “Phone Giants Are Lobbying Hard to Block Towns’ Wireless Plans.” But I hope those pro-muni forces also flip back to the B section of today’s Journal and read Walt Mossberg’s Personal Technology column on the latest developments in private wireless broadband. And they should also check out a very similar report by New York Times technology columnist David Pogue on page C1 of today’s paper.
In these two articles, Mossberg and Pogue review the new wireless broadband technologies coming to market today and point out that speeds are getting much better and coverage is growing rapidly. For example, Verizon’s $1 billion investment in its EV-DO wireless broadband network is finally bearing fruit. Speeds are 400-700 kilobits per second and coverage is available in 32 major metropolitan areas. And out-of-market coverage is provided too, albeit at slower speeds. Rivals like are rushing to build out similar networks and get newer, faster, more capable devices to market too.
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[cross-posted from the PFF blog]
Last week, Philadelphia released its long-awaited blueprint for a municipal wi-fi project called “Wireless Philadelphia.” This week, Tom Lenard and I have released two studies outlining our reservations about the Philly proposal and municipalization more generally. Here’s Tom’s paper, and here’s mine.
First let me provide a summary of the Philly muni proposal and then outline my specific reservations about the plan.
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If you want to know just how screwed up America’s universal service system is, take a look at this excellent report in today’s USA Today.
Author Paul Davidson documents some of the waste and abuse associated with the system and highlights just a few of the rural carriers that milk the system for all it’s worth.
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The New Deal-esque “chicken-in-every-pot” mentality continues to win converts in municipal government circles. Yesterday, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom said the city will now seek to provide free wireless Internet access for the entire public. “No San Franciscan should be without a computer and a broadband connection,” he said.
We’ve had numerous rants about this issue here before, so I won’t get into what’s wrong about this thinking. In fact, I think I’m just going to give up an get on the gravy train of high-tech entitlements. Toward that end, I’m starting a list of all the freebees that I think I have an inalienable right to FREE-OF-CHARGE from government. I think I’m entitled to:
* free broadband (both fiber and Wi-Max, thank you very much);
* a free computer (and a really fast one, damnit!);
* 3 free HDTVs for my home (including one of those sweet new DLP or LCOS projectors that usually cost about $10,000 bucks. And I’ll need you to pay for someone to help me install it.);
* 3 free new TiVO recorders;
* a free subscription to DirecTV (with all the premium channels and sports packages… and don’t forget the Playboy Channel!);
* a free lifetime subscription to NetFlix;
* free internal wi-fi for my home;
* free cell phone service; and,
* free tech support when all this crap breaks down.
Hey, it’s all FREE when the government provides it, right? So why not load up on tech entitlements and give the public all these gadgets and services that they are clearly entitled to under the plain language of the Constitution. Clearly there’s some language in there about all this stuff being a birthright entitlement. God I love Big Government.
And taxpayers foot the bill.
John Borland over at CNET laments the fact that telecommunications providers and “golf-themed” community developers in the suburban Houston area are tapping into $2.2 billion in federal giveaways designed to fund rural broadband deployment. The Houston developments receiving the sweet, sweet subsidies also happen to be in Tom DeLay’s district.
The article also bemoans the fact that very few rural communities are ponying up to the Bush broadband trough to fund broadband investment in rural and “underserved” areas. One telling sentence near the end frets: “This is money that could literally save rural towns from extinction.”
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In a blog ealier this month, I mentioned how uneasy I was about municipal governments turning broadband or wi-fi into the next public utility, like local sewer or water service. There are many risks associated with such schemes, not the least of which is the potential for taxpayer bailouts when things go wrong.
Anyway, I just read a fine piece on this issue in MIT’s Technology Review entitled “Who Pays for Wireless Cities?” In particular, I would draw your attention to the excellent comments by Bill Frezza at the end of the story, with which I totally agree:
“The scenario is similar to that of the late 1980s, when municipalities considered offering cable TV services, recalls William Frezza, a general partner with Adams Capital Management in Cambridge, MA. Cable couldn’t survive as a low-cost public service, he says, and he finds public Wi-Fi equally misguided. He has read several dozen business plans from entrepreneurs looking to make money from public Wi-Fi. No model can succeed because the annual maintenance costs are likely to be exorbitant, he says. Moreover, he argues, performance will degrade as more users log on, which won’t necessarily stop municipalities from casting themselves as Wi-Fi service providers. “A town can make any argument it wants,” says Frezza. “It has as much money as it can pull out of its taxpayers.””
Communications Daily reports today that the only thing the Republican platform has to say about telecom policy is that “every American [should have] access to affordable broadband by 2007.” Well, that’s nice. I guess I missed that section of the Constitution that granted every human being an inalienable right to high-speed Net connections. Perhaps the new Republicans technology platform should be labeled “Life, liberty, and the right to speedily download porn and P2P music.”
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.