> mwsherman's original question was "Why would municipalities offer free wifi rather than free 4G?" This isn't quite how I read the comment, but here are some

> mwsherman's original question was "Why would municipalities offer free wifi rather than free 4G?" This isn't quite how I read the comment, but here are some pretty good answers, I think: 1. They would have to either purchase suitable licensed spectrum (literally hundreds of millions of dollars in NYC) or find an existing carrier with which to form an MVNO relationship with generous enough terms that the city could afford to "resell" the service for free. 2. 4G would probably require NYC to deal with distributing phones or SIM cards, and then users would have to figure out how to unlock their devices.