Should WiFi Be Public Infrastructure? (continued)

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Should WiFi Be Public Infrastructure? (continued)

I hate logging in to all of these various hot spots. Each one has a different login, a different account, and the process is one big hassle.

I've begged for better wifi roaming and I've wondered if Wifi should be public infrastructure.

Yesterday, a reader sent me a link to this story about a silicon valley firm called AnchorFree that is putting up free hotspots that are sponsor supported.

That's a lot better than the paid hotspots we have now, but what I really want is free Wifi everywhere. Or at least let me pay a monthly bill to someone and then get free wifi everywhere I go without having to deal with different vendors with different payment schemes and different login systems.

This is only going to become more important as we get wifi voip phones, wifi iPods with podcasting built in, wifi cameras, and wifi video.

I honestly believe that the cost of supporting public wifi is not that expensive and the benefits to the citizens of every city that does it is enormous.

UPDATE: A great post on the comparisons between public water projects in the 19th century and wifi today. It's a very interesting read.

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» Water, WiFi, and Wherewithal from The City Record and Boston News-Letter
While comparisons between the public wells and private WiFi hotspots may be interesting, the larger lesson is in the development of the parallel delivery systems for water and the eventual absorption of the private infrastructure companies by public (o... [Read More]

Tracked on Mar 1, 2005 3:01:25 PM

Tracked on Mar 1, 2005 3:24:28 PM

Tracked on Mar 1, 2005 3:34:26 PM

» Free WiFi as Public Infrastructure from DefinitiveInk
Fred Wilson has a very interesting post wondering about whether WiFi should be Public Infrastructure. [Read More]

Tracked on Mar 2, 2005 11:18:15 AM

» Should WiFi Be Public Infrastructure? (continued) from The New Ground
Link: A VC: Should WiFi Be Public Infrastructure? (continued). Should WiFi Be Public Infrastructure? (continued) I hate logging in to all of these various hot spots. Each one has a different login, a different account, and the process is one [Read More]

Tracked on Mar 30, 2005 11:59:00 PM

Posted March 1, 2005 in Venture Capital and Technology

Comments

I agree....nothing irritates me more than having to sign-up when travelling just to check my email. I'm interested to know if and when something like WiMax actually comes to fruition. What does this mean for Joe Public? Also, what are the prospects of cheap, disposable Wifi relays? I'm not considering the science of this at all, but what would it be like if every Starbucks coffee cup acted as a relay? That would make just about every public waste bin in the city a wifi relay? Also, it would allow the network of relays to continually evolve - ie it wouldn't be stationary. With that said, what if every stop sign or signal were a relay or even an access point? Broadband over electricity might be the answer...

Posted by: Chevsky | Mar 1, 2005 2:26:32 PM

In Finland, many cities have citywide wireless broadband service delivered by the local electricity utility. These utilities have roaming agreements so that if you are visiting one city, you can use the same username and password you have in your city. Wisconsin's state wide Wi-Fi project is attempting to do the same.

Posted by: Esme Vos | Mar 1, 2005 4:42:36 PM

Ah yes, city water systems. There was a great article in the New Yorker in 2003 called "City of Water". It's about the building of the NYC water system and the current, extremely precarious situation where, among other issues, they can't even attempt to close one of the valves to perform maintenance because they are afraid it won't ever open again. So the water system these days is basically a huge single point of failure, and should it fail, the consequences would be truly catastrophic.

And so with muni wifi. It would crowd out private offerings, there would be a massive single point of failure as one entity (the government) comes to dominate the wireless market, and, as we have seen in virtually every situation where the government runs or regulates an industry, innovation will slow to a crawl or stop altogether.

Wifi itself emerged because of the lack of government interference in that part of the spectrum - innovation proceeded much more rapidly than in the other parts of the spectrum where the government mandated use and technology. And merely mandating use and technology is much less intrusive than actually providing the service itself.

Posted by: Stephen Bronstein | Mar 1, 2005 11:36:43 PM

It would crowd out private offerings, there would be a massive single point of failure as one entity (the government) comes to dominate the wireless market,

The second half of this excerpted bit of your sentence contradicts the first. You suggest that muni WiFi would "crowd out private offerings" even though muni WiFi would pose the risk of presenting a single point of failure.

But if we believe in the market, then businesses (and perhaps individuals) who cannot afford to risk a "single point of failure" would certainly seek out private offerings. So with muni WiFi, you'd have three groups:

a) Those who don't wish to pay for private WiFi (or, as VC suggests, prefer muni WiFi for ease-of-use).

b) Those for whom secure, high-quality commercial WiFi is a necessity and who would not risk their enterprise to the vagaries of muni WiFi.

c) Those who could go either way.

In order for private offerings to truly get crowded out, Group C would have to land with Group A in such overwhelming numbers (or unspent dollars) that private industry would have no interest in catering to Group B at a price Group B was willing to pay. But I just don't think that state of affairs would come to pass.

The USPS offers Express Mail, but FedEx and UPS thrive. The NYPD provides most of the security in New York City, but private security companies still do a brisk business.

Sure, these analogies are imperfect. But I believe they demonstrate that the entrance of the government into a market does not mean that private interests cannot succeed. And so too I believe with muni WiFi.

Posted by: DavidNYC | Mar 3, 2005 12:57:15 AM

I wrote the post on water and WiFi, and another point comes to mind. Private water is making a resurgence and in fact may be one of the big battles of the 21st century as corporations move to begin to control more water sources. Private water still exists to some degree in competition with public water. How many of us work in offices where bottled water is delivered? Private companies weren't crowded out of the market.

What I was driving at was whether or not WiFi will come to be seen as a necessity with a concomitant demand for ubiquity. I don't think it has come close to reaching that point in many cities, but certainly Manhattan, Boston, Silicon Valley, and some other locations are places where the demand might make it practical for a local government or regional entity to step in.

Another possibility is making the building of a WiFi network a condition for renewing a local cable television charter. The local telco providing DSL might be a little bent out of shape over this however.

All I want is to be able to go outside, log on once, and stay logged on wherever I go in Boston.

Posted by: Charles Swift | Mar 3, 2005 8:59:41 PM

muni wifi vs muni water...

k this is sort of trollish.. but

in large cities, creating more muni monopolies is a bad idea, reducing muni monopoloies is better. muni utilities are great in small towns, where these are real grassroots efforts and the personages and effects of their efforts are visibile. in a big city, they just become another faceless board with power but no real consciousness with day to day citizens.

look at the decrepit nature of NYC's water system and subway system. because there are all sorts of overlapping political authorities and complex funding mechanisms, politicians focus on their short term needs and attempt to pass the buck. it's a structural defect, especially when you have interdependent funding.

rural muni utils or util co-ops tend to behave better as they typically don't get substantial amounts of funding from other governmental entities. they can run themselves like an actual business, and the main goal is to add customers at reasonable rates. in NYC, the mayor and governor (and infinite other pols) are deeply affected by, and in control of, the performance and spending plans of various utilities. so the munis just become another shell in the game of political balance, with little regard to how they meet their end goals.

pile on top the number and intensity of the various advocacy groups that will stop operations over anything, and you have a recipe for the kind of huge problems that NYC has with water and subways. adding wifi to the mix would just make it worse long term, while killing off competitive innovators in the short term.

Posted by: hey | Mar 4, 2005 12:10:28 PM

A VC

Musings of a VC in NYC