BuckeyeBlog

The Dayton Daily News had an interesting story today about the failures of government wireless Internet efforts:

many … cities are now postponing, reconsidering or simply scuttling [municipal wireless] plans.

Municipal WiFi providers that were supposed to help them — chief among them EarthLink Inc. — are pulling back or re-evaluating their businesses.

And the growth of privately run WiFi “hot spots,” as well as Internet access through cell phones and new technologies such as WiMAX, are making citywide wireless service for consumers seem like a waste of time and money in some parts of the country.

Interesting. So government-sponsored economic development plans aren’t working out like politicians promised? And private companies are making these technology plans obsolete? That sounds very, very familiar.

One thing the Daily News got wrong was this sentence: “But as is often the case with technology, muni WiFi hasn’t lived up to the hype.” Don’t blame the technology. Blame the elected officials who were hyping the technology. Analysts like Steve Titch have been documenting the problems with municipal wi-fi systems for years. Any politician who looked into this issue should have clearly seen that municipal wi-fi is a loser. Of course, there are always some who are willing to overlook the facts because citywide wireless just sounds so darn attractive.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 2:23 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.