Philadelphia Citywide WLAN in Jeopardy

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Jeff Porten <jeff () jeffporten com>
Date: November 20, 2004 12:47:56 PM EST
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] Philadelphia Citywide WLAN in Jeopardy

On Nov 19, 2004, at 6:44 AM, David Farber wrote:

> It's called House Bill 30, and it's currently in the Pennsylvania 
> General Assembly. If it eventually passes the state Senate and gets a 
> signature from the governor, it could be the end of any 
> municipally-run broadband (wireless or wired) throughout the state.

As Dave well knows, that would be the signature of Governor Rendell, 
former mayor of Philadelphia.  Odds of his approving this are near 
zero, although it's been years since I lived in PA so I don't recall 
what the lege needs to override a veto.

For folks near Philly, I propose two arguments:

1) for those who think this is unfair competition, please remind 
reactionary GOP politicians that those of us who subscribe to private 
networks get both multicity roaming, and a guaranteed dedicated wire 
shared by few people at each POP.  I'd rather have a T1 at Starbucks 
than share citywide bandwidth with 10,000 friends.

2) why, exactly, is Philly planning on spending huge piles on WiFi when 
WiMAX could do it cheaper in around the same time frame it'll take them 
to actually deploy?

Best,
Jeff Porten

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