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View Full Version : Philly To Cover 135sq Miles With WiFi Access


Ed Hansberry
09-01-2004, 11:00 PM
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;cid=562&amp;u=/ap/20040901/ap_on_hi_te/wireless_cities_7&amp;printer=1">http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&amp;cid=562&amp;u=/ap/20040901/ap_on_hi_te/wireless_cities_7&amp;printer=1</a><br /><br /><i>"For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot."</i><br /><br />I'm looking for a realtor in Philly right now. :wink:

brianchris
09-01-2004, 11:33 PM
I'm looking for a realtor in Philly right now. :wink:

:rotfl:

one504
09-01-2004, 11:48 PM
Glad to see you folks catching up! :D
http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2004/02/23/story2.html

Duncan
09-02-2004, 12:15 AM
"For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot."

I'm just waiting for the obligatory comment about how it's commie/socialist/anti-capitalist/unconstitutional/un-american - which is what usually happens when any US public body decides to do something this good and offer a cheap/free universal service...! :wink:

johncruise
09-02-2004, 12:22 AM
I'm looking for a realtor in Philly right now. :wink:

My approach is to get that guy to go run for mayor in our city. Is it too late for him to apply for candidacy in this year's presidential election?

Ryan Joseph
09-02-2004, 12:26 AM
Geeze, Ed...you beat me to it. I was just heading over here to submit this story as news. But I'm glad it's up anyway. :D

This is so amazingly cool, I can't express it with words. I live about half an hour outside the city but I bet I'll find myself making more and more trips in if this becomes a reality! :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Jonathon Watkins
09-02-2004, 12:38 AM
Geeze, Ed...you beat me to it. I was just heading over here to submit this story as news. But I'm glad it's up anyway. :D

:way to go: Good man Ryan.

We like to say it should be like the air you breathe — free and available everywhere," Gonick said. "We look at this like PBS or NPR. It should be a public resource."

So, all you need is the air that you breathe - and your Wifi. :lol:

Great idea though!

Jeff Rutledge
09-02-2004, 05:01 AM
Political posts split and moved here (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=31859).

Carlos
09-02-2004, 06:25 AM
So are you saying that discussing the legality of this venture, by a government agency, is a "political" discussion? That question is very intrinsic to this conversation; it will determine a lot about the future of projects like this and the one in Grand Haven.

If governments get involved and give it away, then free enterprise will be thwarted from acquiring users. When government gives it away though, we all still pay. Worst of all, the people least likely to use it and who can least afford it also pay for it.

The spectre of government-funded and run systems like this is obviously anti-competitive. If you were considering spending millions/billions on a network but thought that at any moment your entire customer base could disappear, would you spend it?

buss
09-02-2004, 07:44 AM
Interesting idea and certainly holds possibilties for doing what a city government is supposed to do, providing essential services for its residents. In one respect this is not much different that a city building a public library or a swimming pool, however I think it would be reasonable to expect that they will place restrictions on the use of the service. Will not be able to access "adult" sites, file sharing, etc since it would reasonably be the appropriation of tax-payer money for illegal or improper usage. (Please no freedom of the internet lecture here, one can not go to the public library and check out the last copy of "Sex Monthly" either)

One thing must be remembered, it is not free. They are already mentioning that the estimate is USD 10M. There is an opportunity cost with this money if it does not generate income. Elsewhere USD 10M in city services would be cut.

Will be interesting to see how this develops.

Steven Cedrone
09-02-2004, 12:51 PM
Ummm...

Just one thing folks: Philadelphia has money problems. With that in mind, and their problems with just keeping essential services funded, I really doubt we will see this happen...

Just my .02

Steve

don dre
09-02-2004, 02:35 PM
Okay, it appears as if I'm the first Philly resident to weigh in on this. The poster who wants Mayor street as their mayor made me laugh, you can have him. For me, this seemed almost totally out of character. It's true, Philly has money problems but most of it stems from a poorly managed municipal government. They can "find" the money for this if they want. At any rate, the biggest concern I have is its deadening effect on innovation. Specifically, we will be at the mercy of a city agency waiting for upgrades because who in their right minds would want to compete with a taxpayer funded service? Personally, I wish they'd worry about covering open spaces. Like any large city, most of the downtown areas are covered for thsoe who look. We are also the proud home to T-mobile's largest hotspot (Headhouse Sq). With that said, I'm happy fo the publicity it's brought. I'd encourage Ed Hansberry to move to Philly. It's a wonderful city and probably the most underrated on the east coast. Now only if our mayor would do more to get good jobs downtown...

Jonathan1
09-02-2004, 05:58 PM
cheap/free universal service...! :wink:

Yah. I wouldn't call 10M cheap or free. It doesn't take much imagination to guess where that money is coming from. :roll: Esp for those who don't care about WIFI. You guys DO realize there are people out there that:
1. Don't care about the internet (Yah mind boggling isn't it?)
2. Are happy with just their wired net access.
3. Don't have the hardware to take advantage of a WIFI network. Is the city going to subsidize the hardware to roll this out to every PDA, laptop, and desktop in the city?


That being said. I hope to see that day that most large cities are WIFI enabled from border to border but you can bet your NIC that telco companies will be throwing up a holy stink over that. Say hello to VoIP baby. :rock on dude!:

EnsignRam
09-02-2004, 06:02 PM
NYC already has complete WIFI coverage throughout the entire city... thanks to "sunday computer users" who plug in their WIFI AP/Routers and say, "cool this works right out of the box...no config needed...that was easy."

Turn on wififofum in any part of the city and see your screen fill up with AP's most of which are labeled WEP=OFF SSID=linksys or SSID=dlink or SSID=wlan....etc..

Carlos
09-02-2004, 06:06 PM
The interference there has got to be a major issue.

bdegroodt
09-02-2004, 08:43 PM
Yah. I wouldn't call 10M cheap or free. It doesn't take much imagination to guess where that money is coming from. :roll: Esp for those who don't care about WIFI. ...snip...

While I'd love free wifi in my world, I'm content to pay for it. And to your point, it's not only going to cost on the outbound $10M front, but let's not forget that most cities participate in a revenue tax and infrastructure tax on utilities. This would likely mean far more than $10M in real cost if the cable/telco companies start to miss out on business because a potential customer gets it for "free." That said, I sure do miss NYC for all the free WiFi (among many other things) :lol:

BTW, what's the incentive for a city to do this? Is it to get more people to move into their city? Gain headlines on Yahoo? Support the mayor's need to roam wirelessly? Curious.

don dre
09-02-2004, 09:16 PM
It may also not be free to the user. I would appreciate cleaner streets and better maintained parks more but this gets more press. While it may seem like a good idea, nothing is free. At best it's providing free or subsidized internet to those who do not work for a living (most funding in Philly comes from a wage tax plus business taxes). At worst inefficient city agencies or bidding process will lead to large costs overruns and for the service as a whole, we will over pay (I live in Philly). My biggest concern; however, is technological. how many firms or startups would have been but were unable to compete? What if the city chooses a poor technology? They are already talking about lampposts where the near future holds towers capable of broadcasting 30 miles. To me this is a mayor looking to establish a legacy and attract business but doing everything possible to avoid the inevitable..cutting taxes. We already have a fair amount of free hot spots such as a city park, square, and farmer's market (these are the official sites). If it has done nothing else, it has forced Philly into national news for a good reason and for that I'm happy. Oh yes, improved transit would also be nice (along with phone coverage in the stations!).

Jonathan1
09-02-2004, 09:25 PM
NYC already has complete WIFI coverage throughout the entire city... thanks to "sunday computer users" who plug in their WIFI AP/Routers and say, "cool this works right out of the box...no config needed...that was easy."

Turn on wififofum in any part of the city and see your screen fill up with AP's most of which are labeled WEP=OFF SSID=linksys or SSID=dlink or SSID=wlan....etc..


Note to self: Wardrive NYC someday. 8O

Janak Parekh
09-03-2004, 03:05 AM
NYC already has complete WIFI coverage throughout the entire city... thanks to "sunday computer users" who plug in their WIFI AP/Routers and say, "cool this works right out of the box...no config needed...that was easy."
Well, it's not perfect coverage, but scarily, you're very close to right on the money. At one of my customers, I ran a site search and saw 8 802.11b/g networks. 8. 8O I switched them 802.11a shortly afterwards, where they're they only ones. ;)

Plus there are the sanctioned free networks in various bits and places in NYC.

Turn on wififofum in any part of the city and see your screen fill up with AP's most of which are labeled WEP=OFF SSID=linksys or SSID=dlink or SSID=wlan....etc..
Linksys wins, I think. ;)

The interference there has got to be a major issue.
It's absolutely insane in the dense office buildings. I get similar range for a as I do with b because of the terrible interference. :|

--janak

Darius Wey
09-05-2004, 10:18 AM
Sydney is wireless to >90% of the city's population. :D It's getting close to the 100% mark.