Here's another article about a public/private sector marriage.
Internet service provider EarthLink Inc. has won approval to build a wireless network around a free city-owned system that made its debut last fall in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
I don't know about you, but any time I see the word "free", I defer to what my parents taught me: There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Kent Lassman from The Buckeye Institute For Public Policy Solutions in Columbus, Ohio writes about some of the concerns.
The latest craze among municipal leaders is the deployment of publicly provided wireless networks. Officials in Dayton, Cleveland and Dublin seek public funds for wireless Internet, oftentimes shortened to Wi-Fi, networks in their cities. The relatively low start-up costs and technical availability of spectrum makes the idea attractive to civic leaders with an itch to “be digital.”
Unfortunately, the liability risks associated with publicly networks are too often overlooked. The promise of Wi-Fi, so the thinking goes, is that citizens will blissfully link their computers to the Internet and the local economy will bloom.
To me, the dangers of mixing the public and private sectors is best illustrated by the image of the circus horse rider. Unless the two horses remain in perfect stride, trouble is inevitable. My experience is that life is never that perfectly in balance. And the public and private sectors respond drastically different in crisis situations.
EarthLink said its free service would operate at up to 300 kbps and its high-speed service would be 3 1/2 times faster. (Earthlink's VP of Development and Planning for Municipal Networking, Bill) Tolpegin said the free system would operate "as long as the city is rebuilding and it makes sense to offer the service."
"As long as it makes sense" is how a business person see things.
The city's network runs at 512 kilobits per second — much faster than dial-up connections, but slower than high-speed services offered by private providers. Under state law, it will have to be slowed to 128 kbps when the city's post-Katrina state of emergency ends.
The city has encountered stiff opposition from the telecommunications industry over its desire to continue running it at 512 kbps after the disaster declaration is over. A bill pending in the Legislature would extend the faster service for a year after the declaration ends.
"A bill pending in the Legislature" is how the public sector sees things. Those 2 horses will never run in sync. Bet the farm on it. But wait, there's more.
Public Wi-Fi networks, however, may just as easily turn into a haven for bad behavior. When Internet access is made available to all law-abiding citizens, it is equally available to law breakers. When criminals can choose between Internet access from firms that demand detailed billing information or anonymous access from the city, is there any doubt that they will flock to the municipal network.
Last month Florida officials held a pre-trial hearing in the case of a Wi-Fi hacker. The accused parked his car outside of a private residence and armed with a laptop computer, he is alleged to have hijacked the use of a home-based Wi-Fi network. Thus, there is a measure of “theft” to the incidence, but equally as important and perhaps more dangerous, if the hacker was engaged in malicious or illegal activities it is not at all clear that the homeowner is free of liability.
Great.
The point here remains. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
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