Now that the heady notion of free Wi-Fi is disappearing from municipal agendas, the merits of publicly owned fiber networks are bubbling back onto them. St. Paul, Minnesota, is taking steps to put fiber in its future. But Utah, where two ambitious fiber projects are already underway, believers in muni broadband are fighting to preserve the massive investment the state has already made.
The Cloud, a wireless provider in the UK, is offering iPod Touch users Wi-Fi access for 3.99 per month, with no minimum term. The announcement comes only a couple of weeks after Apple announced a partnership with The Cloud for iPhone users.
Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and co-author of Who Controls the Internet? has written an analysis for Slate that should be required reading in communities everywhere. The reason behind recent failures in municipal Wi-Fi, he writes, “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 illu
The New America Foundation is holding a one-day event in Washington DC on October 2, 2007: Driving Wireless Broadband and Innovation (How Opening Up Unused “White Spaces” on the Airwaves Will Drive Wireless Innovation). The focus will be on how emerging technologies can open up spectrum white spaces to unlicensed devices and spur a new round of digital innovation.
Singapore is already a juggernaut of maritime activity. Now one of the world’s busiest seaports aims become one of the most connected. The city expects to be the first port in the world with land-and-sea wireless broadband communications.
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