The concept of free, citywide Wi-Fi service has slowly been de-emphasized in the evolution of OneCleveland. At first, some members used to talk of creating a vast, free Wi-Fi network that would give home access to every Clevelander. Others said they wanted to build a Wi-Fi corridor stretching from Case Western Reserve University to downtown, sprinkling large swaths of Wi-Fi access throughout the region.Hmmm. Well, if you want to see a city taking a serious look at community-wide wifi, Philadelphia is moving right along. The mayor's Wireless Philadelphia Executive Committee held a town meeting on the subject two weeks ago and put the whole two hours up as a webcast. The setting, the participants and the discussion are different from what we're used to around here -- I strongly recommend taking a peek. (The guy on the panel doing all the talking is my old friend and former co-worker Ed Schwartz of Neighborhoods Online.)
At the news conference Thursday, Mayor Campbell said Wi-Fi was something Cleveland would consider down the road. When I discussed Wi-Fi proliferation with Scott Rourke, OneCleveland's president, he said his organization enables municipalities by providing wired high-speed networks but that it's up to the municipalities to determine how to use them.
To get back to One Cleveland and our City government, Chris' blog entry has one other piece of news:
The mayor also said the city would flow high-speed service into community tech centers, which, coupled with efforts to create a standard computer literacy certification, would help raise the tech IQ of the city.Now that's what I'm talkin about...