Sacramento Back on Track for WiFi Free and fee-based muni WiFi by 2009 Sacramento once had plans for citywide WiFi but they stalled last year when the city’s changes caused the contracting company to pull out of the deal. Sacramento is finally back on track; they’ve signed an agreement with Metro Connect to offer citywide WiFi by 2009. The system, which will have 1 Mbps download speeds, will be ad-supported. Sacramento will also serve as an anchor tenant for fee-based services provided by SMC.
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  PolarBear03The bear formerly known as aaron8301Premium
join:2005-01-03 | Here we go again Great, yet another wifi article. Hmmm, funny, nobody has commented. I wonder why.... | |
|  |  John GaltForward, MarchPremium
join:2004-09-30
Happy Camp
kudos:2 | Re: Here we go again And your point is...?
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A is A | |
| | | PolarBear03The bear formerly known as aaron8301Premium
join:2005-01-03 | Re: Here we go again This was my point. I have a pet peeve against muni-wifi articles.
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A computer lets you make more mistakes faster than any other invention, with the possible exceptions of handguns and Tequilla. -- Mitch Ratcliffe | |
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| dagg
join:2001-03-25
Galt, CA | ill pass meh.
no thanks, i already have a sprint card which gets me better speeds than 1mb and i can take it anywhere there is a sprint signal. | |
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4 edits | Muni-WiFi failure list grows by 1 So here's how these things play out:
The CITY wants YOU the ISP to front all the capital, build the thing, operate it, and make DANG sure they have oversight to change requirements. They'll want to keep tabs on your books too, because if you are actually making money that means you aren't offering enough freebies to the underprivileged. Expect that you'll have to hire some dead-weight 2nd cousins of members of whatever committee or city council has it's fingers in the project.
For the great privilege of taking all the risks, spending several years of sweat building up something new, you get what? No taxes? A subsidy? A guaranteed cash award for each milestone met? No, they really offer no support except rights to put up YOUR antenna and radio on rusty city towers. Subject however to them changing their minds the next administration, and wanting you to rip it all down because somebody's cousin knows stuff about computers and can do it better.
There are 2 types of people who get involved in these projects. White-collar criminals, and idiots. The white-collar criminal has all the angles figured out to cheat the system. They know creative accounting and when to skip town. The honest idiot will just bumble along trying to do the right thing in an insane system, and in a few years be bankrupt. Notice that ad-supported "free" ISP have pretty much disappeared? There's a reason for that, it didn't work even in dialup days, much less now with everyone addicted to P2P and VoIP constantly online and abusing the network.
Since Muni-WiFi has been just over the horizon for at least 5 years, you'd think one of the cities that started early would have some BLAZING success stories. About how it made their city richer and "bridged the digital divide". And how the WISP contractor either made money off their NetZero business plan after all, or at least enjoys basking in the adulation of the public and shining their public-service award plaques. No, you keep reading about a NEW 5-year plan and how this one will work for sure....
I recall busting out laughing when I read the Atlanta RFP which included a requirement for maintaining signal from a vehicle moving at 60 MPH around the city. You may see that as just a minor funny bit, I see it as symptomatic of the problems that permeates every one of these muni-WiFi projects. They've ALL read the same news stories about how some other city plans to have "free" WiFi by these methods, and they all think they need to jump on that bandwagon whether it makes any sense or not. The important thing is getting in the news and keeping up with the city next door. | |
| |  FiLPremium
join:2005-08-16
Silver Spring, MD | Re: Muni-WiFi failure list grows by 1 "The CITY wants YOU the ISP to front all the capital, build the thing, operate it, and make DANG sure they have oversight to change requirements."
Ain't the city FRONTING the money? Seems ass backwards for them to rely on a company to provide capital for a non-profit thing such as muni wifi...of course profits will be made, but wouldn't all that go to the company making the network because of how they price their own services an infra?
Seems like your taking a pretty radical stance with all the radical comments made...white collar criminals an idiots?
Down here in Silver Spring, ain't no one making money off our muni wifi, noones stealing, and everyones hooking up easy as Clooney gettin' ass, so their goes your idiot analogy...;) | |
| | | | | Re: Muni-WiFi failure list grows by 1 Did you not RTFA?
The linked previous stories about why previous vendor pulled out, indicated the Sacramento politicians originally said they were going to be an "anchor tenant". Essentially using this WISP as their provider and paying a bunch for it, would give them a big fixed customer.
Then they changed their minds and suddenly wanted it to be all ad-supported, with the city risking nothing. Sounds good to the taxpayers, but blew the deal. City wanted to have no skin in the game, but dictate all the terms for "their" network. Typical. | |
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