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Does anyone think that having Wi-Fi that's "as free as air" would be a bad thing? If the government was actually doing this, wouldn't everyone react positively?

Does anyone think that having Wi-Fi that's "as free as air" would be a bad thing? If the government was actually doing this, wouldn't everyone react positively? Excluding lobbying from telcos, is there any reason that the FCC hasn't already done this?

slapshot 14y ago
The left would require that pro-violence sites be blocked, the right would require that child porn sites be blocked, and everyone would complain about access to "terrorist" sites. And the RIAA would get involved. Having a single government point of failure seems to introduce a lot of problems.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  "the right would require that child porn sites be blocked, and everyone would complain about access to "terrorist" sites." Probably switch those two, and you'd be dead on.
SoftwareMaven 14y ago
It wouldn't be "Free as air", it would be buried in your taxes along with twice the bureaucracy necessary to run it. Judging by other government IT projects, especially at the fed level, it would also be more concerned with filling out forms in triplicate than actually getting anybody connected to the Internet. At the municipal level, though, things seem to run more smoothly and the amount of tax waste seems to be less. Keep the Feds out other than to provide the bandwidth, IMO.
- sbmassey 14y ago
  In addition to the inefficiency, putting a large proportion of the communications infrastructure directly under Federal control would seem to make political interferance way too easy as well. Assuming they could get the thing up and running as promised, of course.
mikeash 14y ago
I wouldn't mind as long as it was cheap and I could still get competing services. If it drove out all competitors and left me stuck with an inevitably sub-par public wireless network, I'd be pretty annoyed.
- wmf 14y ago
  Yep. Wireless cannot deliver the 20+ Mbps broadband that many of us currently enjoy, but wired broadband would likely shoot up in prive once deprived of its economy of scale by a universal wireless network.
  - Aloha 14y ago
    It can actually, but only will sites every couple blocks for the useage profile invisioned by this concept.
rbf 14y ago
Having a free internet would be as nice as having free electricity, water, roads, etc. Unfortunately designing, implementing and running a infrastructure costs money.

slapshot 14y ago

The left would require that pro-violence sites be blocked, the right would require that child porn sites be blocked, and everyone would complain about access to "terrorist" sites. And the RIAA would get involved. Having a single government point of failure seems to introduce a lot of problems.

jlgreco 14y ago
"the right would require that child porn sites be blocked, and everyone would complain about access to "terrorist" sites." Probably switch those two, and you'd be dead on.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago

It wouldn't be "Free as air", it would be buried in your taxes along with twice the bureaucracy necessary to run it. Judging by other government IT projects, especially at the fed level, it would also be more concerned with filling out forms in triplicate than actually getting anybody connected to the Internet. At the municipal level, though, things seem to run more smoothly and the amount of tax waste seems to be less. Keep the Feds out other than to provide the bandwidth, IMO.

sbmassey 14y ago
In addition to the inefficiency, putting a large proportion of the communications infrastructure directly under Federal control would seem to make political interferance way too easy as well. Assuming they could get the thing up and running as promised, of course.

mikeash 14y ago

I wouldn't mind as long as it was cheap and I could still get competing services. If it drove out all competitors and left me stuck with an inevitably sub-par public wireless network, I'd be pretty annoyed.

wmf 14y ago
Yep. Wireless cannot deliver the 20+ Mbps broadband that many of us currently enjoy, but wired broadband would likely shoot up in prive once deprived of its economy of scale by a universal wireless network.
- Aloha 14y ago
  It can actually, but only will sites every couple blocks for the useage profile invisioned by this concept.

rbf 14y ago

Having a free internet would be as nice as having free electricity, water, roads, etc. Unfortunately designing, implementing and running a infrastructure costs money.