Posted on 10/04/2007 1:13:26 AM PDT by bruinbirdman
Paris has launched Europe’s biggest free wireless internet network as part of a scheme to turn the French capital into a “world digital city”.
Almost 400 broadband wireless “hotspots” are running in parks, gardens, squares, libraries and other public spaces. The scheme, which cost €2 million (£1.4 million) of public money to install and will cost €500,000 a year to run, is the latest attempt by the Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, to give Paris a modern, competitive edge.
The initiative follows Mr Delanoë’s bike-share scheme, which has proved an extraordinary hit since 20,000 bicycles were distributed around the city in July. Other cities around the world are rushing to follow suit. Ken Livingstone sent a team to study the initiative last month and Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York, tried out one of the bikes last Saturday.
Mr Delanoë has also promised to ensure that 80 per cent of buildings have access to fast broadband via fibre-optic cable. It is relatively simple to lay cable along the wide, straight streets and boulevards of Paris.
The wi-fi scheme, however, falls short of the blanket coverage promised by San Francisco, Philadelphia and other cities. To calm commercial operators who fear losing business, the power of the hotspots has been limited and most will be switched off when public buildings and parks close for the night. Roughly half are inside city buildings such as museums.
Interesting. I don’t know if it’s correct, but I remember reading somewhere not too long ago that Minneapolis is considered to have the most wi-fi coverage of any area in the country.
I think the French are onto the right idea. There are a whole bunch of technologies now that should be viewed as free public amenities, to be fully and freely funded by the Government because it makes good business sense to do so.
Electricity, gas, telecommunications, water and the Internet are four that leap immediately to mind.
Nobody should make a profit from any of these amenities: they should be viewed as sunk costs, the price that Civilization pays for progress. They should be nationalized and provided at-cost, for the good of the Nation.
Any country bold enough to do that would leap way, way ahead of other countries that insisted on siphoning off “profit” from what should be bare-bones commodity-priced Utilities for the public good.
You just described Cuba.
It isn’t a matter of socialism, it’s a matter of attracting businesses to the city.
You need to learn more about the free market and a little history.
When I was in second grade, many moons ago; i.e., 1950s, a phone company representative came to my classroom and showed us a mockup of a wireless phone. This was touted to be available in the near future. After 10 years wireless had not been introduced.
In high school, during the 1960s, I learned about how markets operate and I learned that the phone company had a monopoly granted by the state. It occurred to me then that wireless phones would never be developed by Ma Bell, because the wiring was the only thing that justified their monopoly status!
Low and behold, AFTER the phone monopoly was broken up, two things occurred: long distance phone rates dropped significantly due to competition AND wireless phone networks developed.
Now, being an electrical engineer, I realize that certain technologies required for wireless phones did not exist during the 50’s and 60’s, but my point is that the monopoly holding phone company had NO incentive to develop the technology. I doubt that Bell Labs, who touted some of the finest talent in the country, would have ever come up with the cell system we have today.
Now for the application: Why turn over ANY utility to the government where it is guaranteed to (1) stagnate and (2) be subject to needless overhead.
> You just described Cuba.
Give ‘em credit: they have done quite OK for forty years running their own agenda under Castro. And they still make fine cigars: the best in the world. In fact, I can legally go buy a box now and enjoy them, along with fine Cuban rum. I have a nice box of “Romeo y Julietta” Churchills in my humidor: if I wanted to I could smoke ‘em all at once, and when I run out I can go buy more.
And if I want, I can buy a plane ticket and frolic on the sandy beaches of Cuba and have a wonderful, cheap Cuban holiday, without a care in the world.
Sadly you can’t...
So how is Cuba germane to this topic?
The gubmint came up with the internet and GPS. Private industry optimized both. Likewise, it was gubmint that helped grow the transistor business in the 1950s. There is room for both gubmint and private involvement. It isn’t an all or nothing deal.
> You need to learn more about the free market and a little history.
Wireless communication would have happened whether Ma Bell ran a monopoly or not.
I gotta hear the logic of this. I have a feeling it'll be a doozey.
> It isn’t a matter of socialism, it’s a matter of attracting businesses to the city.
Amen! Some things just make pure business sense to do. Raping-and-pillaging for what should be commodities just doesn’t make business sense. Yet we do this, and it is a nett drain on our economy. These things should be enablers that allow us to leverage the truly smart stuff for a profit. There is nothing smart about a commodity service.
First you gotta admit/concede that we’re on the brink of a “wireless revolution.” The iPhone is a piece of crap — already outdated — but kinda/sorta the right idea.
So, I can see a city like Paris or New York or London saying to businesses, “The City is Your Office. Employees never have to be out of touch.” Also, once the city builds the infratructure, private companies will add services to it.
Not how I would phrase it. It’s more like public transportation.
I imagine you would. Everything is cheap there because those people have nothing. It must be nice to have a third world proletariat to smugly lord over.
...you also assume that the phone monopoly was always a bad idea. It did allow the company to safely invest in infrastructure and technology, as well as establishing technological protocols/standards. I believe the Ma Bell monopoly became a bad idea and that’s the reason it was busted up.
Translation; "We've found another government program to tax you for, come to New York and pay for it".
self-ping
In the past 36 months the gubmint has funneled more than a billion dollars though the Department of Agriculture to boost high speed internet access to rural areas.
The money is given to private service providers to update their infrastructure.
Translation; “We’ve found another government program to tax you for, come to New York and pay for it”.
Maybe so, but people are happy to pay for services they understand benefits them.
> I imagine you would. Everything is cheap there because those people have nothing. It must be nice to have a third world proletariat to smugly lord over.
Like Puerto Rico, or Guam, or American Samoa, ay...
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