Talk about a tempest in a teapot.  Jeez you folks... how about a cold
shower of reality here?
 
A) Municipal Wifi does not equal Free Wifi.  With the exception of a few
small communities, a city-wide wifi project on the scale of Minneapolis
or Saint Paul will never be free to either the end users like you and
me, nor to the cities themselves.  From what I hear about proposals for
the Mpls project, end users will have to pay a fee, just like they do to
use wireless at Starbucks and Caribou, and that fee will be more than
typical DSL broadband service.
 
B) Municipal Wifi is a glitzy, technical solution to a political problem
that doesn't exist (yet).  There are hundreds of ways for citizens to
get involved in democracy without using a mouse.  I find the prospect of
providing access to democracy through a communication channel that
requires at least some investment up front to defeat the purpose.  You
have to have money to own computers.  You have to have money to buy
internet connectivity.  You have to have money to at least buy the
coffee at Dunn Brothers to use their wireless, and most places charge
much more.  Democracy (little d) should not be limited to those with
credit card$.
 
C) Municipal Wifi isn't going to destroy small ISP's.  Wifi, just in
case you hadn't noticed, is just a networking methodology and not a very
good one at that.  It's slow, it's unreliable, and it's insecure as
hell.  Somebody has to provide the link up to the cloud on the back end,
and carping about about "communism" sounds more like someone who wasn't
there when the contracts were being signed.
 
Now - Municipal WiMax...that's a whole different ball of wax.  Give us
ten years of technology growth with corresponding drops in Wimax NIC
prices, and then maybe you've got something that'll border on a true
community effort. 

________________________________

From: tcwug-list-bounces at tcwug.org [mailto:tcwug-list-bounces at tcwug.org]
On Behalf Of Jessica Bennett
Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2005 6:36 AM
To: tcwug-list at tcwug.org
Subject: Re: [tcwug-list] THURS: International E-Democracy Event


This seems totally on topic to me, and knee-jerk conservative attacks
seem like the crap I'd like to see off the list. 

On Jun 23, 2005, at 4:09 AM, Matthew S. Hallacy wrote: 


	Some might also say that municipal wifi is communist. How about
we 
	keep this crap off the list? 


	On Thu, Jun 23, 2005 at 02:36:12AM -0500, Tim Erickson wrote: 

		At 2:00 AM -0500 6/23/05,
<mgenelin at fastcomputerserviceco.com> wrote: 

			With all due respect, is this on-topic for this
list? What does this have 
			to 
			do with WiFi? 


		Good point. I should have elaborated. 

		In attending conferences and meetings on E-Democracy or 
		E-Deliberation, I'm finding increasing interest in the
issue of 
		municipal WiFi projects, such as what is being proposed
in 
		Minneapolis (and also St. Paul). 

		Some might say, that municipal WiFi systems are the
infrastructure 
		for the E-Democracy of the future (or at least one
possibility). I 
		know, that as a member of E-Democracy.Org - I'm very
interested in 
		the WiFi project being proposed in St. Paul and feel as
if this is 
		something that E-Democracy activists need to pay close
attention to. 

		Its been my impression, that this group is very
interested in public 
		accessible WiFi networks. To me, this is very relevant
to the work 
		that I do in the field of E-Democracy. That's why I've
followed this 
		list for the last year or two. 

		I know at least one of the guests at this International
E-Democracy 
		event is very interested in city wide WiFi networks and
would love to 
		chat about what is happening in Mpls. Bob Carlitz of
Information 
		Renaissance. 

		I hope that this helps, 

		Tim Erickson 
		E-Democracy.Org 
		651-643-0722 


		-- 
		================================================= 
		Tim Erickson http://www.politalk.com 
		St. Paul, MN - USA 651-643-0722 
		tim at politalk.com iChat/AIM: stpaultim 
		================================================= 



		_______________________________________________ 
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Minneapolis/St. Paul, 
		Minnesota 
		tcwug-list at tcwug.org 
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	-- 
	Matthew S. Hallacy 
	http://www.poptix.net GPG public key 0x01938203 

	_______________________________________________ 
	Twin Cities Wireless Users Group Mailing List - Minneapolis/St.
Paul, Minnesota 
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	http://mailman.tcwug.org/mailman/listinfo/tcwug-list 


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