Prague’s citywide wireless Internet network will not be offered free to residents but it’s still getting resistence from local telecoms.Prague’s citywide wireless Internet network will not be offered free to residents but it’s still getting resistence from local telecoms.
Following a year of controversy, the capital of the CzechRepublic renamed the initiative from “Free Internet for Prague Citizens” to simply “Wireless Prague”, and separated the build-out into two phases. The first to city offices and schools is already being implemented. The second, the target of the continuing controversy, would extend service to homes.
Private local telecom operators argue they already offer service to all of the city’s more than one million people and, even on a paid basis, city service represents unfair competition and is a waste of public funds. (Sound familiar?)
Considering how effectively, the telcos succeeded in quashing the free service that the original plan called for, they may now have a point. The project cost is Euro 0 million and, according to a story on Govtech.net, the new plan only offers free “64 kbps access for citizen to access City Hall services.” That’s a high public price tag to provide only city data with no access at all to the worldwide web.
Click here to read the story.
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