How wifi might work in SFSlate has a great piece by Tim Wu, author of "Who Owns the Internet," that points out why Mayor Newsom's public-private partnership idea for municipal wifi will never work.
Wu's point (also bloggednicely in leftinsf)
"The basic idea of offering Internet access as a public service is sound. The problem is that cities haven’t thought of the Internet as a form of public infrastructure that—like subway lines, sewers, or roads—must be paid for. Instead, cities have labored under the illusion that, somehow, everything could be built easily and for free by private parties. That illusion has run straight into the ancient economics of infrastructure and natural monopoly. The bottom line: City dwellers won’t be able to get high-quality wireless Internet access for free. If they want it, collectively, they’ll have to pay for it."
And yet, Newsom's crew are out raising money for a ballot measure, Prop. J, that would lock the city in to a "public-private" free-lunch partnership. I've just looked at the Ethics Commission filings on it, and in many ways it's the usual Newsom bunch: Eric Jaye of Storefront Media, Newsom's chief consultant, is running the campaign. Jim Sutton is doing the legal work. The money's come from downtown types (the Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe law firm gave $500), Newsom's father (who gave $1,000) Newsom's political allies (Assessor Phil TIng gave $250) and labor groups that want to stay on the mayor's good side or owe him favors (Sign painters, transport workers, and firefighters). What a waste of time and money -- unless this whole thing is about providing a back-channel way to give cash to the mayor.
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Comments (1)
SF should cut the crap and build its own fiber network. A vote for Newsom is a vote for someone who apparently will do what he can to suppress awareness of the cheapness and coolness of optical fiber - so, forget being able even to talk about fiber while Newsom's in office. We're certainly not hearing about fiber from the mass outlets - too clueless or too frightened to mention the topic.
Force them to tell you why you won't get fiber. You can get a Gigabit (1000 megabit) connection for $25/month within 2-5 years if you will elect progressive, intelligent and responsible leaders. Or you can sit on your hands waiting for a rerun of "pathetic wifi 0.5" if you do nothing.
If you care in the least about your and our telecommunications future, see http://communityfiber.org for a sketch of how such a network can work and then demand that fiber be made a central topic in council chambers -- starting NOW. (Please FORGET> the STUPID wifi stuff.)
The solution is on the table. Make your leaders pick it up and look at it.
Posted by eric dynamic | October 1, 2007 02:41 PM