Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

O'Reilly covers new legislation that could disallow municipal wireless systems in the US. "The recently introduced U.S. Senate bill, called the Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act of 2005, may spell the end for municipal wireless. Among other things, the bill says that when there is a case of competing bids between a private company and local government, preference will be given to the private company. Richard Koman reports on the implications of this bill and what it could mean for consumers long-term."

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:18 UTC (Thu) by tjw.org (guest, #20716) [Link] (8 responses)

All that comes to my mind is my last "vacation". I was repeatedly called by my employer with the crisis-of-the-moment. While traveling (escpecially in an area unknown to me) finding a wireless network was hectic to say the least. I had to pull out my CC to open a new "account" in every occasion (e.g. Starbucks).

I remember thinking to myself how great it would be to have some sort of uniform 802.11 network like the cellular network. I don't mind paying for the access, I don't care if it's provided by the govt., I just want it to be simple and prefeably not require me to dish out my credit card and billing information in every neighborhood I stop in. In one instance I even had to hand over my laptop to have my WEP keys overwritten.

Municipal networks would provide 2 great services for me:

1) a well published zone of coverage (no more war-driving the coffee shops and scanning all the window signs)

2) access standards. (no more surrendering financial information to companies unknown to me).

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:25 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (guest, #6227) [Link] (2 responses)

Get Internet access through your cell providor. This is what my boss does. He has Sprint I believe. You connect the cell-phone to your laptop and dial through it much like a modem. The speeds are horrendous but you get access pretty much anywhere you are.

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:27 UTC (Thu) by Alan_Hicks (guest, #20469) [Link] (1 responses)

I wouldn't say horrendous. My co-worker does the same thing and he gets 144kbs synchronous,
which is a good bit better than dial-up and certainly enough to do remote administration
through Citrix or OpenSSH.

144kbps synchronous...

Posted Aug 4, 2005 19:02 UTC (Thu) by JohnBell (guest, #12625) [Link]

... which is the combined bandwidth of ISDN 2B+D. Remember when ISDN was considered blazingly quick? Now, we can at least get equivalent bandwidth from cell service (I'm not sure how the latency compares, however).

Say what?

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:33 UTC (Thu) by huffd (guest, #10382) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm in agreement that it would be nice if WiFi would be everywhere, but please reconsider the logic of your statements.

First you say: "I don't mind paying for the access, I don't care if it's provided by the govt.,"

Then you say: "no more surrendering financial information to companies unknown to me"

If you subscribe your first statment you've given away *EVERYTHING*, your financial and personal information and invited the enemy into your BEDROOM!

Say what?

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:58 UTC (Thu) by tjw.org (guest, #20716) [Link]

If you subscribe your first statment you've given away *EVERYTHING*, your financial and personal information and invited the enemy into your BEDROOM!

My concern is theft, not privacy. I'll gladly give CC, billing address, mother's maiden name, even my SSN to a government entity. I'm not too concerned that they will rob me.

I'm also not too concerned about being spyed on by city governments. Not only don't they have the budget for it, I'm just not that damn interesting. On the other hand, if a law enforcemnt agent wants to spy on you, it doesn't really matter if the service is provided by the city or Starbucks. A warrant is a warrant and the PATRIOT act is a warrant.

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 16:58 UTC (Thu) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link] (1 responses)

> All that comes to my mind is my last "vacation". I was repeatedly
> called by my employer with the crisis-of-the-moment.

Turn off your cell phone when you are on vacation. Problem solved.

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 21:28 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

I second. We've let the ruling class use our love of technology to enslave us.

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 4, 2005 17:43 UTC (Thu) by richo123 (guest, #24309) [Link]

Yeah your "vacation" and your boss don't sound good. You need to be assertive over issues like this I find. (Proper) Vacations aren't a luxury they are needed for sanity by everyone!

Full circle

Posted Aug 4, 2005 15:41 UTC (Thu) by justme (guest, #19967) [Link] (1 responses)

Once upon a time, the government licenced the airwaves in exchange for promises of openness, fairness, and public service. Now, not only are those days gone, but now we've come all the way around to the corporations purchasing laws that forbid the *government* from using the public airwaves!

Yep

Posted Aug 8, 2005 17:24 UTC (Mon) by jsr (guest, #31590) [Link]

Once upon a time, the government took the airwaves from those individuals who were homesteading them (go look into the early history of radio). Seems only fair that someone is trying to take the airwaves back.

How about a wholly-owned subsidiary?

Posted Aug 5, 2005 0:46 UTC (Fri) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

I should think any entity would be able to use the Mozilla Corporation
"wholly-owned for-profit corporation" strategy to get around this.

If a charity can own a corporation, surely so also can a civic
government own a "private sector" business.

There are also partnerships or 49%+51% joint ventures.

Or just give the "private" business to the mayor's brother-in-law like
most planning-permission deals. No-one wants democracy to interfere
with business, after all!

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 5, 2005 2:00 UTC (Fri) by freemars (subscriber, #4235) [Link]

There's a pro muni-wireless blog at: http://www.wetmachine.com/totsf/

Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Aug 5, 2005 11:20 UTC (Fri) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

Well, if the purchasing of US Congress laws by US corporations is going to keep the US in the dark ages, the rest of the world will still forge ahead on this one. This argument is a bit like would it be a good idea for business, if we all had to pay a private entity for incremental access the communications network we call the road system. If we want to walk or borrow a second hand bike from a friend, well no. If we want to drive a car then we have to pay extra anyway, to the government for road vehicle and fuel taxes where democracy votes for these, and to private entities everywhere for the car and its maintenance and for supplying the fuel.

Having public access to the road network at point of entry (your front gate) creates many possibilities for all kinds of other markets this gives open access to, which is good for other kinds of business generally. I think the same will apply to universal IP network access, in the sense that for slow speed access this will be a greater benefit for the economy that this facilitates compared to the smaller cost which public provision of this utility will add to local taxes. Why do tourist areas pay for municipal flower beds ? Similar argument. Because it encourages people into the area to spend money and businesses into the area to take it and employ people.

The monitoring and privacy argument is a bit like whether you want CCTV cameras in your neighbourhood. If this makes you feel safer or otherwise let your representatives know how you intend voting on this.