CiFi Boston
March 30th, 2006 by MaxThomas M. Keane Jr. writes in the Boston Globe that Boston is considering providing “free” city wide wireless Internet for its taxpayers…with 20 million taxpayers dollars.
But, as Mr. Keane reports, city-wide and even nation-wide wireless Internet is already available. He says: “Well, good news: It’s already here. I know, because for the last year, I’ve been using it. It’s from Verizon, and it costs me $80 a month. It’s fast and reliable, and unlike the city’s nascent plans, it works pretty much everywhere in the country – indeed, as I write this, I’m in a car on the New Jersey Turnpike, connected to the Internet.”
And even that technology may soon be superseded, putting Boston pols, unsurprisingly, two tech generations behind. Reports on Gizmodo and CNN say Google may be getting ready to offer free wireless internet across the country. That’s $20 million less than the Boston proposal is likely to cost taxpayers.
With technology moving this fast, city politicians should do the taxpayers, and themselves, a favor and avoid offering to use the taxpayer dollars to fund “free†Internet. By next year the idea of government providing wireless Internet is probably going to sound as ridiculous as a political would today offering to guarantee our inalienable right to an Atari 2600.
