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Boston WiFi

By dykstraNet on Wed, 02/08/2006 - 1:53pm

The Globe is reporting today that Boston is setting up free WiFi throughout the city at a cost that could be as high as $20 Million. Is this a good use of public funds? Do you want the city being your ISP? Are they going to pull some folks off the parking ticket desk at city hall to field tech support calls?

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Tom Menino
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Comments

By adamg on Wed, 02/08/2006 - 2:06pm.

Oh, there's a spare $20 million lying around City Hall? At the risk of sounding like a technophobe, I'd rather see them spend the money on more police officers and teachers - or road repairs, or upgrading playgrounds, or offsetting the 50% increase in property taxes many of us have seen over the past few years.

But that's too boring, I guess.

There are parts of the city where "free" wireless would do a world of good - I think it's great that MIT's Roofnet is setting up a wireless network at Tent City. But I just don't see a really compelling case to blanket the entire city with wireless.

If they are going to do it, though, let's hope they have better luck than the existing Main Streets program seems to have had so far.

That having been said, I'd doubt the city would actually get into the ISP business. Instead it would contract out the network to some private concern (look at San Francisco and Google for example). Plus: You probably wouldn't want to give up your own broadband service because the only way the city will get to do this is if they don't offend the ISP Gods, i.e. Verizon and Comcast, which they will do by a) ensuring the bandwidth is slower than offerings from them and b) by periodically kicking users off the network to make them log in again, which would be a serious annoyance to serious 'Net users.

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By Aaron on Wed, 02/08/2006 - 3:52pm.

I'm glad that they're doing it, it's going to be a short-term frustration but a long term benefit, but I wonder if they'll finally put MassPort's Logan WiFi out of business once and for all, or kowtow to the FAA/"Security" nonsense.

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By John A Keith on Thu, 02/09/2006 - 12:09pm.

Obviously, I use the internet, A LOT. Like, eleven hours a day, by my estimate. Therefore, you might think I'd like free wireless.

There is no reason for the city to pay a dime. City involvement in private enterprise is a stupid idea, plain and simple.

If there's a need for wireless internet, let some company put it together. Or, do like they are doing in Cambridge, and have a university set it up.

Who's to say wireless won't be out-dated, in even five years.

Then, what will the city do?

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