Steve Goldberg links to unhappy comments on the Pennsylvania legislation by Sasha Meinrath, who links in turn to MuniWireless.
Here's internet.com on the buzz at the WiFi Planet conference.
And here's the Philadelphia Inquirer's business columnist Andrew Cassell, who didn't like the idea of Wireless Philadelphia when the mayor proposed it, having some second thoughts in the light of Verizon's attempt to squash it.
Chris Seper, reacting to my post yesterday, says:
A source of mine at Case Western Reserve University once told me that a municipal network would never truly compete with a private provider like SBC. He compared it in some ways to bottled water versus water from the tap. A municipal Wi-Fi network (the tap water) would be slower, include a stringent filter to block a host of Web sites, and wouldn't quickly adjust for the number of users in an area (another issue that would effect Internet quality). Meanwhile, a private Internet service provider could guarantee faster and unfettered Internet use with additional services as well.While I think the generalizations here about the quality of municipal wireless presume too much, the basic point -- that public and private network development aren't necessarily in conflict -- is accurate. After all, One Cleveland's nonprofit/public network may be costing SBC some business, but it's creating a market for Cisco and IBM. And there's a good chance that the planned Philadelphia system -- and others like it -- will be implemented in partnership with private wireless vendors.
So the argument in Pennsylvania isn't really about government vs. private. It's about whether local governments can act effectively to create alternatives to existing telecoms' market dominance, when their obsolete infrastructures -- and entrenched interests -- become obstacles to community innovation.