I read yesterday that Google might provide free city-wide WiFi services for San Francisco. Google officials say San Francisco residents (and visitors) will enjoy a free 300 kilobits per second, always on connection anywhere in the city. As part of its proposal, the company says it will be offering wholesale access to other service providers, who will offer higher throughput connections to their customers. Google says it plans to use its own authentication services. (That explains the Google WiFi VPN client to some extent). The company is going to use San Diego-based WFI, a cellular network builder company to build out the WiFi network. Here’s more details.

What are google and City of SF’s motives of such a great public service?

I remember seeing free WiFi posters throughout Philly downtown a couple months ago while I was traveling, so I dug up old news stories related to that. It turned out to be a long and painful process.

Apparently Mayor Street announced the plan in Sep 2004, and since then, it aroused heated debate and nationwide interests. At that time a specific budget wasn’t set, and it hadn’t been determined if the service would be for free or low-cost. A recent update from Ms. Neff, CIO for the city, indicated that it’ll cost about 15-20 million for the 135 square feet area. It won’t be FREE though. I think now the pilot programs in Philly are free, meaning there are quite a few hot spots throughout downtown philly. But eventually when the city-wide network is built, the city will charge the service for $20 a month, or $10 for low-income households. It costs about $60-70 for the device. This would especially benefit neighborhoods where the existing infrastructure is not capable of supporting broadband service.

Everything sounds wonderful, but the city is facing powerful skeptics. First of all Verison was pissed. Verizon lobbied the Pennsylvania legislature and had a law passed and signed that would “prohibit a government or any entity it creates from offering broadband for a fee.” [Philadelphia Faces Wi-Fi Woes PC World 11/23/04]. Comcast had somethig to say as well. “Because of numerous financial and technological questions about the city’s plans, and the substantial risk to Philadelphia’s taxpayers, we have not endorsed the city’s efforts,” David L. Cohen, Comcast’s executive vice president, wrote in an e-mail message. “Investment in a competitive, challenging and risky business like broadband is something better left to private companies.”

Ms. Neff’s defense against critics is that, it’s estimated by the third year, Philly will be saving $2 million a year on their $150 million IT budget by not having to pay Verizon for Internet access at their 24,000-employee city offices.

No that’s not good enough. Heartland Institute issued a paper on Why Muni Wi-Fi Is a False Hope (02/01/05). This largely argues that because prior attempts at wired networks failed and that gosh, it’s going to cost $75-150 to set up so they can’t afford it anyhow (never mind how much more it would cost to set up and buy broadband access from Verizon or Comcast), it shouldn’t be done. Cato institute (funded by telecom giants) conducted a study to attack municipal wireless services.

GIVE ME A BREAK.

Municipal WiFi was first started in Spokane, Washington. It’s only free for government employees but paid access is also offered. Many other cities have since followed.

Australia has turned all of Sydney into a high-speed hot-spot, and users get much faster broadband service than we do - for less.

I guess we should thank telecom giants for protecting the public from… um.. socialism invasion (free for all!)? Capitalism is the foundation of this country and let’s all pay wireless phone companies $79.99 a month for wireless connection. The poor telecom giants, after all, having been waking up in the middle of a night covered with cold sweats with the mere notion of cheap municiapl WiFi services.

I wish city of San Francisco the best luck.