teambnet
Team B Group
Premium
join:2003-05-06
Chicago, IL
1 edit | reply to jsinaiko
Re: Wifi in the Heartland?
Quit the HI bashing- and make a fact based, data-supported argument. After all the headline on above the fold in both dailies is a more compelling argument regarding municipal enterprise than any I've seen from either side of the muni i debate.
If Chicago can't break even running a basic necessity like transportation how the hell are they gonna even manage to break even on a luxury frill like wifi?
Also what's the basis for the allegation that business as usual would favor a Texas based corporation that contribued zero dollars in the last three municipal elections?
If anything a city sanctioned and privately run operation is far more likely to be subject to 121 LaSalle's business-as-usual.
Note: my early edition of the Trib had the CTA hearing as the lead. I just noticed that the Lefkow murder break displaced it in the city final edition. |
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jsinaiko
Premium
join:2001-04-25
Chicago, IL
 ·AT&T Midwest
| Why should anyone quit the HI bashing? They deserve to be bashed. They are a bunch of right-wing flacks who certainly don't have my interests at heart.
Your questions make no sense in the context of this discussion. Name ONE city that breaks even of public transport. ONE. Anywhere in the world.
100% of public transport systems are heavily subsidised. Right, that's 100%. None of them break even. So please check your facts before you spout. Anyhow, what does public trans and the CTA have to do with muni wifi? Buses and wifi are as similar as airplanes and telegraphs. |
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teambnet
Team B Group
Premium
join:2003-05-06
Chicago, IL
| See I've disagreed with HI on LOTS of things but- unlike most left leaning municipal issue think tanks (read: academia)- they end up producing copious amounts of data to support their assertions; so I'm inclined to give their positions a fair look. All you seem to have is ad hominem? And by the way:failure to hold forth in agreement with the ideals of your Roman Catholic Socalist homeland is not evidence.
The fact that that municipal transportation systems don't make money is EXACTLY the point: government isn't designed to run a networked point-to-point enterprise [if you'd like the finer points to this assertion I'll be happy to expound in detail via email but essentially it boils down to this: goverment was designed to handle consistent descrete needs- roads, telephones, anything piped from a limited source don't fit this definition since these infrastructures are ALWAYS in flux].
All this project seems to do is, like the CTA, create a system that will artifically stimulate demand by artifically lowering the supply cost at what will likely be taxpayer expense (this is Chicago, after all, where EVERY endeavor ends up a net liability to the treasury). Now you don't sound like a supply sider but perhaps I'm wrong.
And make a reasoned argument this time, will ya? |
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chex383
join:2003-03-13
Montreal, QC
·Verizon Online DSL
 ·Comcast
1 edit | reply to jsinaiko
Don't even THINK about trying to compare utility/Muni access to something like 'public' transport.
How is the hiway/roadway subsidy doing in the United States? When was that last time that broke even? Federal Government spent 150 billion on highways last year. 50 Billion on airports. Neither of those 2 break even AT ALL.
Muni subsidies are tiny compared to these, and even have the ability to mostly break-even in certain scenarios.
-- Chex |
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batageek
Slave To The Duopoly
Premium
join:2003-01-25
| reply to teambnet
Try right here....Plenty of reason to bash HI
»www.eprairie.com/discuss/viewtopic.php?t=181
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»www.tricitybroadband.com |
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jsinaiko
Premium
join:2001-04-25
Chicago, IL
·AT&T Midwest
| reply to teambnet
Why should muni wifi make money? Do the police turn a profit? Trash collection? Firefighters? Streets and san. If the people of Chicago feel that muni wifi is bad they can vote the folks who passed it out of office. Government is no more or less than the VOTERS (as opposed to you or corporate vested interests)want it to be.
And where are HI's facts? All Bast says is that it will "stifle" innovation. That's a fact?
There's a reasoned argument. Where's your? |
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teambnet
Team B Group
Premium
join:2003-05-06
Chicago, IL
| reply to chex383
As for the eprairie posting... well if Kbode is Ken Bode then you have the epitome of East Coast elitist media liberalism. Combine that with a Master of Bulls**t Approaches teacher who espouses that TQM/Sigma Something statist corporate conformist crap and you have some real intellectual weight- a business academe who couldn't hack it in the big leagues and a journalist- wow. There's a reason why UofC is on the Nobel committees' speed dial and not NU- those guys are just two of them.
As for my comparison with public transit not being valid, I would assert that they are the EXACT same parallel-
1) you have largely private concerns travelling point-to-point on a public way or device (recall I was talking about public transportation NOT the roads)
2) an infrastructure that is subject to compulsory obsolescence and depreciation [regarding the eprairie post: Ameritech's escalating bid for the city network was to capture the market not the infrastructure- also they were looking to physically piggy back onto the city system for their own capital improvements on the north and northwest side and pocket the savings from a full price ICC rate hike- funny how SBC didn't think much of it last year when Daley was pimping every piece of city infrastructure to the highest bidder: SBC didn't even bother to respond)
3) is largely valued under relative criteria- much of it being of a purely political skew
4) is built with static permanence into a dynamic environment
5) considering there are extant alternatives, both commercial and public (think: library wifi program- something I am all for), it is not a pure necessity
Point 4 is even more true when you are talking about the kind of deployment spec'd in Burke's proposal: over 10,000 transmission points using a first or second generation technology! WTF!!! I'm all for early adoption (got my Treo 650 GSM to prove it) but I did it on my own dime and, with a wonderful 1:1 tech-to-CPE ratio, my problems are easily solved. Unless this is a going to be staffed by CityYear (or whatever VISTA is called these days) this will end up being the US postal service from a HR standpoint alone. |
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jsinaiko
Premium
join:2001-04-25
Chicago, IL | What planet are you on?  |
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teambnet
Team B Group
Premium
join:2003-05-06
Chicago, IL | Exactly the comment from some one who is conceptually stunted. I don't see you refuting my points: municipal wifi on the scale the city council is talking about is totally unworkable. |
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