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October 17, 2007
Municipal WiFi
My city, Toronto has painted the entire dowtown with a WiFi network provided by Toronto Hydro. I love it since it's so easy to get online now. It was better when it was a free trial for many months but it's still creating a competitive advantage for Toronto for business and tourism. The SLAW blog points to a few resources last week.
"Toronto is not the only city to attempt such a scheme. However, the takeup has not quite been as expected in cities across the United States, particularly where private companies are relied on to provide (and make money off of) the service.
According to Slate, what success stories there are come from towns where WiFi access is treated as a public good and invested in accordingly.
Here in Toronto, officials say they are pleased with the number of subscribers to the service (now starting at $30/month). Apparently they were expecting 10% of free users to subscribe and are ahead of their projections."
It seems like public good foci can work. It has certainly worked for libraries for a long long time and society is better for it. It's interesting to watch the emergence of this third way.
(Disclosure: My father is a retired executive from Toronto Hydro.)
Stephen
Posted by stephen at October 17, 2007 6:27 AM
Comments
Our city has citywide (external) WiFi, not just downtown...but that has a LOT to do with this being Google headquarters. No subscriptions, and no indication Google's trying to make money from it. A model that applies...nowhere else.
Posted by: walt crawford at October 17, 2007 11:18 AM
Interesting.
The Detroit News (http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007710130367) recently carried an article on the failures of municipal wireless across the U.S., similar to the Slate story but without Slate's analysis. I was curious about this until I read this post and the Slate article. It now makes sense: Where governments are concerned about the public good and treat internet access as such, it has a chance of success. Where such access is relegated to the private sector, there are problems. This should not be a new lesson to anyone in the U.S.: When public services are pawned off to private business, the public often suffers.
Good for Toronto for realizing this.
Nice post.
Posted by: Phillip Kwik at October 18, 2007 3:32 PM