I really don’t understand why everyone expects broadband to be free. When you say free, what does that mean exactly? Do the manufacturers supply the city with free equipment, the engineers offer their services to design the network out of goodwill for the community? Does the bandwidth provider donate free bandwidth? Or are you saying that it should be paid by the city/county or federal government?

No matter how you break it down there are costs associated with it. Someone has to pay for it and if you are implying that the city pays for it by taxes, or federal grants etc. then someone is still paying for it.
If it is local taxes then the citizens of that city are paying for it. If it is federal funding then all of us are paying for it. If it is from a city windfall then I want those taxes back so that I can decide where I want to spend it.

If the government is going to offer something for “free” and we have to pay for it anyway even though some of us don’t want it, I believe it should be health care. Not that I want a government sponsored health care system.

There are millions of elderly out there that don’t give a flip about broadband, but would be greatful to see free health care and prescriptions.

If I am missing something here please elaborate. As the old saying goes “nothing is for free”

Regardless of what we all think not everyone wants broadband. If that were the case I would have a lot more customers then I do now.

MuniWireless cracks open the terms of the Philadelphia Municipal WiFi contract with Earthlink (ELNK). It’s worth a look. The contract outsources virtually all business risk to Earthlink. It seems like a great idea. I thought the San Francisco pro…

To Carlos’ point, premium speed packages will be offered. The contract lays out the requirements for the base service of .75 to 1.5 Mbps, but makes provisions for “future products” which include speed tiers.

As clarifications come in, I’m updating the version on our site:
http://www.newrules.org/info/philly-earthlink-contract.html

I felt compelled to expound upon one comment above “Free High-speed Internet for everyone is at best some sort of pipedream” – ok I can’t let that lay there.

I would contend not only is free not a pipe dream but rather it is growing in popularity and acceptance and will ultimately become the predominant model.

I am currently working with as many as a dozen communities across America whose only interest is in deploying a free system as a public service and economic development initiative for their communities. St. Cloud, Florida was the first to do this but the movement is growing exponentially.

Movements like this develop from the people and grass roots efforts of scores of innovative individuals and companies across the country are supporting the movement to free.

As more communities deploy free systems, those around them will want — no, expect them — for free as well and so on and so on. Additionally, once the economic benefits of a free system within a community get analyzed and quantified (as we are doing in St. Cloud) it will become painfully clear to all elected officials that the economic and social benefits afforded by free systems far outweigh the investment.

Finally, and we are already seeing this, governments and industries alike that initially looked at or deployed pay-for Wireless models have begun to discover that the free model is actually more advantageous to them achieving their goals and have begun switching over.

I would ask you to look at everything from airports to hotels, restaurants, coffee shops and even public ISP systems like one large ISP in CA. All of these started out as 100% pay models and have already largely migrated to free.

I will predict for all here today that over the next few years, free will become the predominant model for municipal wireless systems whether they are municipally owned ala St. Cloud or private like the San Francisco effort.

Many will be built from day one as free and many will start out paid for and convert to free. Either way the result will be the same, large regional, free to the public wireless systems.

Having said that, however, I might have liked to see some sort of two tier system, where perhaps a slower level of connectivity (at least current dial up speeds) could be free to the end customer and maybe a second tier of premium service could be charged at a competitive rate. That would result in a “safety net” approach for low income residents and still allow for free market forces that drive the innovation in the internet.

I am definitely interested to see what will happen with this system, I have to applaud the city of Philadelphia for their pioneering work in bridging the digital divide of its citizens.

There is a PDF version of this piece on our site at
http://www.newrules.org/info/philly-earthlink-contract.html

Interesting statistic to pull out of this document – $1.30 per month per light pole is the cost estimate. It makes you wonder how a Power Utility like Southern California Edison can ask for $1,600.00/month to use their light poles.