I went to meeting last night where the CIO of Oakland County Michigan spoke and presented his project called Wireless Oakland County . They appear to well on the way to forming a 910 square mile free internet zone (at 128Kb) in southwest Michigan. They paln to charge for faster access rates. He fielded a lot of questions, but it’s still unclear to me how a goverment entity can enter into the free market. Didn’t Philly already try doing this?
He mapped out a plan to be completed with Wi-Fi by mid 2008 and to start bringing Wi-Max on line as it becomes available. Why aren’t the internet providers doing more to shut this project down in the name of free enterprise? My fear is that they will let them build the infrastruce and then sue for them to shut down and sieze the assests. Could it happen?
I suppose it could happen, and the service providers are plenty irritated at it, but as of yet it has not been shut down. I think part of that is why they are only providing 128k for free.
Some states have laws that prevent government entities from competing with private enterprise in cases like this but most don’t. There are actually quite a few municipalities that either have or are thinking of creating “free” wireless systems. Of course, they aren’t free, the taxpayers (or, in some cases, advertisers) are paying for them.
Is it a threat to free enterprise? Of course. It makes little sense for a private company to set up the infrastructure to offer such service if the government is giving away the same service for free or at a reduced cost. However, many cities that are doing this are finding that they are having difficulties competing in the technological world.
For more information on wi-fi projects as well as other municipal broadband projects, check out this blog: http://www.reason.org/outofcontrol/archives/wifi_municipal_broadband/. It’s a libertarian/free market site, but it has a pretty comprehensive list of stories that deal with situation similar to those in Michigan.
I live in Oakland County. My dad has been excited about the project since it was first announced. I’ve been skeptical. I still am. But here is a partial answer to your question, I think.
Glad to see that I have a fellow skeptic here in Oakland County. So many people are just gee whiz that’s so great about the idea. Would love to see it happen, but believe that the real fighting will not happen until after the election. I did catch some interesting tidbits of information during the meeting.
Oakland county sends $1.3 billion more to the state that it gets back.
Not all electrical poles carry power that can be used for Wi-Fi devices.
Hi Opel.
Rose township dosen’t even have tornado warning towers or stoplights
in which to place wi-fi repeaters.
That you may actually need a device in your home in order to get
a good signal.
It’s a very ambitious project and I hope that they can pull it off.
I hate it when municipalities of any size try to use this logic (and I also live in Oakland County). Of course there are going to be counties that put more into the bucket than they take out…it’s been the American way for longer than many of us have been alive. Oakland county is also one of the richest counties in the United states, so it only makes sense that we outlay more than we receive.
Could it happen?