Why? Fie!

Russ at Metroblogging has an intriguing post today, putting forth a number of good questions about the upcoming "wi-fi cloud" that promises to bring wireless Internet coverage to the entirety of The City That Often Works. What about the "dead zones"? The aesthetics? Coordinating with the utilities [whose cooperation is needed for erecting antennae on their poles, which carry, yes, wires]? And so forth -- all good questions.

Forgive WWP for being such a carmudgeon, but exactly how did a luxury like universal wireless Internet service rise to the top of Portland's To Do list? Perhaps we've missed the news that public safety is fully in hand. Or that the infrastructure of paved streets, sidewalks, parks and community centers has now expanded east of the People's Republic of Laurelhurst. Or that fiscal accountability has been finally achieved at the city's corporate and candidate welfare offices. Or ... well, you get the idea.

Oh, sure,  it won't really cost the city anything to launch the "cloud" [or so we are told].  High-end users will even have to pay a fee to get the advertising-free version. But do you ever wonder why it is that every boutique project aimed to appease elites from bicyclistas to baristas finds an instant audience at City Hall, when regular things go unnoticed, or worse, are held hostage to the "which child shall we kill first" bond-levy-income tax election extortion scheme Portland is becoming increasingly so famous for?

Perhaps the "cloud" will stimulate business or tourism. Maybe. [But they said that about the $60 million ski lift, too.] We're doubtful, in any event, especially if it involves the current City Council.

It's often said, "If you can't get the small things right, why should anyone trust you to do the big things?" Somewhere in there, there's a corollary for Portland.

Comments

[Mmmarvel]

Among other things, the service will launch, amongst great fanfare and kudos. Then within the first 3 years of existance the company will complain that it can't afford to run it for "free" anymore, that it needs financial help from the city to run it. The cry will go up about how "great" this "service" is and how we (the city) need to fund it to keep it going. Count on it!!!! Within the first 3 years (5 years if my crystal ball is getting cloudy) the city will in some way be subsidizing the "service".

[torridjoe]

Internet access is not a luxury, it is a utility--and currently it's unaffordable to a great many people in Portland. You're kidding yourself if you think internet availability is going to do anything but become a more crucial thing for households to have. My wife's teaching partner doesn't have email, and it affects her job performance simply because of the culture that has developed around communicating needed information almost solely by email.

You may also be missing the savings involved to the City by having government field offices, emergency services and schools served by Wifi. It will also run the parking meter concession.

[Don]

Portland is the city that puts cold blooded fish (The Big Pipe) ahead of school children. So why not Wi-Fi ahead of repairing the streets? Believe it or not there are folks who don't even have computers yet. One friend of mine goes to work, does her shopping, pays her bills, etc without a computer, let alone internet and email. She does quite well in fact.

[user]

You folks are stupid. This cloud doesn't cost the city a dime. But hey, whining is a lot easier than productive thinking right?

[Worldwide Pablo]

... ah, spoken with the full authority of anonymity. Besides being a coward, you're also easily duped, as well. Check back in in two or three years when the alleged self-supporting cloud becomes vapor and guess who gets to prop it up. Really, is no one paying attention?

[Jon]

A teacher cant afford internet? Please. With dialup at $10/mo, and DSL at $15/mo (for 768k) I find that really hard to swallow. Besides, there are several free email services out there, and 'net access is free at any library.
I will agree that internet access is about the best thing ever, and certainly more beneficial than cable TV (and talk about overpriced). It certainly is not a utility. Not yet anyway.

[Greg]

Proponents and Curmudgeons alike would do well to look at Seattle and Tacoma for support of each argument.

Tacoma went into the Cable business a few years back, mostly to poke a finger in the eye of what was then Viacom. (the story is a great David vs. Goliath, and can be googled up at the News Tribune (Tacoma)

The Click Network not only povides competition to Viacom AKA Comcast, but also runs several more city and county oriented networks than they would have had, and the service is not only less expensive than Comcast, but was first in the area to offer internet connection by cable. While slow on the up take (they were overwhelmed by their success), they continue to offer an economical alternative.

In Seattle, Seattle City Light continues to offer rates far lower than Puget Power, er Washington Energy, but many of the fine services once offered have been cut or now fees are charged. On the other hand, municipal oversight has seen SCL venture into green power, conservation, and opting out of costly coal and nuke projects that the other "investor owned" company opted in on, and passed the new costs on to their consumers.

When my grandmother blew an element in her electric oven in the mid 1960's, not only did city light send a service tech, but the part was "free". Today you would be lucky to get a live voice on the phone to tell you where you could buy a new one. But the KW rate is still one of the lowest and greenest around.

Washington Energy, on the other hand, took three days to respond when the pilot light blew out on our gas fired furnace. 3 long cold days and nights. When the tech finally got there (with a charge to do so), he told us we would have gotten a faster response if we just said, "I smell gas"... Even then it would have been about a half day.

Lastly, Wi-fi city wide would allow utilities to check meters, and could provide additional data for Police and Fire, as well as traffic updates and other services (parking meters, library, school districts, etc) . Services the city might already be paying for via radio transmission or dedicated lines. For a city, in theory, it should be a break even without public ads.

[Don Smith]

I think Pablo's point (and others, like myself) is not that the Wi-Fi cloud is a bad idea, but that the City shouldn't be spending time or money on this "problem" until our problems (that don't warrant quotation marks) are solved. This is nothing more than a ribbon-cutting opportunity in an election year.

There's no reason Personal Telco couldn't have created a citywide Wi-Fi service using City buildings if the City had let them. But then, the city (read, council members) wouldn't get "credit" for it, nor would they have had a photo-op.

So instead, we have a City process whereby a California (perish the thought) company is providing a service that a competing Portland company was ALREADY WORKING ON PROVIDING.

How many man-hours (sorry, person-hours) went into this project? I'm sure it wasn't zero. How many streets in Portland are still gravel. I'm sure it's more than zero.

That's the point. Not the merits, but the focus. Why now? Vote soon.