p2pnet - rss feed: New Orleans in Wi-Fi storm
p2p news / p2pnet: Ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, and suffering desperately from its after-effects, New Orleans still depends to a great extent on Wi-Fi to maintain communications.
But now telecommunication lobbyists are trying to shut down the network, and Greg Meffert, the city’s chief information officer, fears the state legislature will agree.
“State law prohibits cities from providing more than a relatively sluggish 128-kbps network, but New Orleans offered its faster network as an emergency relief effort,” says Red Herring, going on that with corporate help, New Orleans had hoped to expand the wireless network at a cost of $12 million to $18 million.
“We are talking to Yahoos and Googles to step up and access the rest of the city,” the story has Meffert saying.
But, “The vendors, the BellSouths of this world, are not only going to force us back, making our existing Wi-Fi illegal, but also they want to close a loophole for emergencies so that we would not do this again.”
Red Herring says BellSouth, “declined to comment, but, “telecommunications and cable giants have tried to restrict city-sponsored broadband initiatives in other parts of the United States. Several states bar local governments from competing with private telecommunications services.”
That is not, however, going to cow Meffert. He and Mayor Ray Nagin, “plan to keep offering the service as long as they feel an emergency exists,” adds the story.
“If I have to go to jail, I guess I will,” he said. “If they really want to play that game, I guess they are right. But we simply cannot turn off these few lifelines we have to our city and businesses.”
Following New Orleans’ adoption of Wi-Fi to help its beleaguered citizens, BellSouth cancelled its plan to give a building damaged by Hurricane Katrina to the city.
Also See:
Red Herring - Wi-Fi Fight Brews in Big Easy, March 22, 2006
cancelled its plan - New Orleans Wi-Fi angers BellSouth, December 5, 2005
March 24th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
It everything is wireless, then the city ought to sell all of the infrastructure to citizens. If it it in the hands of private cictizens, then Verizon, BellSouth, SBC, and the other monopolies can go f**k themselves.
March 24th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Another case of coperate america trying to control the goverment at any cost!
March 24th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
“Following New Orleans’ adoption of Wi-Fi to help its beleaguered citizens, BellSouth cancelled its plan to give a building damaged by Hurricane Katrina to the city.”
If the building was sufficiently damaged, the city should condemn it, take it by eminent domain, and put a huge Wi-Fi hub and cellular switching center atop it. Certainly BellSouth has already wrung everything they could out of their insurer for it. It was probably cheaper for them to give it to the city than pay for it’s demolition, so their offer was likely rather disingenuous to start with.