Reality catches up to liberalism

Mar 22nd, 2008 by Mark

The Muni Wi-Fi nonsense that gripped the city planners and bandwagon politicians has panned out. Gold is not the result, but empty promises. The bold talk and unrealistic plans of the out of touch politicians is just another in a long line of failed social experiments that end with the realization that Government can’t do much of anything.

Bold Talk Born of Irrational Ignorance

Everyone was to have internet access by wi-fi. Another chicken in every pot lie from a politician, and yet many fell for it. Once again the market does what liberals can only promise.

The Philadelphia plan announced in 2005 has made no advancements and ISPs are giving up. When you are in tech, it’s difficult to work on the timeline of bureaucrats. If you do, you end up out of business. Bureaucrats don’t have that problem, of course; so they don’t care.

PHILADELPHIA — It was hailed as Internet for the masses when Philadelphia officials announced plans in 2005 to erect the largest municipal Wi-Fi grid in the country, stretching wireless access over 135 square miles with the hope of bringing free or low-cost service to all residents, especially the poor.

Municipal officials in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and 10 other major cities, as well as dozens of smaller towns, quickly said they would match Philadelphia’s plans.

Yes, the panacea to all the world’s ills; internet access. What were they thinking? Simple, big contributions from tech guys and gals and votes from free-loading “poor” and guilt-racked liberals. What could be better?

But the excited momentum has sputtered to a standstill, tripped up by unrealistic ambitions and technological glitches. The conclusion that such ventures would not be profitable led to sudden withdrawals by service providers like EarthLink, the Internet company that had effectively cornered the market on the efforts by the larger cities.

All I can say is “duh”! Welcome to reality.

It hasn’t failed, just gone dormant

Yet some still persist in the delusion that it was a good idea in the first place.

Craig Settles, an independent wireless consultant and author of “Fighting the Good Fight for Municipal Wireless” (Hudson Publishing, 2006). “Now that they’re all sobered up, they’re trying to figure out if it’s still possible to capture the dream of providing affordable and high-speed access to all residents.”

“[A]ffordable”, why would he care? The government was going to pay for it. Oops, that never works.

little Johnny Juan/Yasir/Mohamed can’t do his homework

The sob stories are now coming out. The liberal media is always on the look out for a heart-string to yank on.

For Cesar DeLaRosa, 15, however, the concern is more specific. He said he was worried about his science project on global warming.

“If we don’t have Internet, that means I’ve got to take the bus to the public library after dark, and around here, that’s not always real safe,” Cesar said, seated in front of his family’s new computer in a gritty section of Hunting Park in North Philadelphia.

Well boo-hoo. Maybe the city should work on fighting crime, bringing business back, and then you could walk to the library without fear. Good luck with that in Philadelphia. Guess you will just have to ‘cowboy up’ and do what everyone before you did; make it work.

His family is among the 1,000 or so low-income households that now have free or discounted Wi-Fi access through the city’s project, and many of them worry about losing access that they cannot otherwise afford.

What do you want to bet that porn, games, and chat are more important to these people.

I am so sick and tired of people thinking that they “deserve” something that everyone else pays for. If you give them everything they “need”, why would they have to work, or achieve? They don’t and that is what liberals want. Reliance upon Government, so they can control the populace.

23 poles to cover a city?

Never overestimate Government incompetence.

In Philadelphia, the agreement was that the city would provide free access to city utility poles for the mounting of routers; in return the Internet service provider would agree to build the infrastructure for 23 free hotspots and to provide inexpensive citywide residential service, including 25,000 special accounts that were even cheaper for lower-income households.

But soon it became clear that dependable reception required more routers than initially predicted, which drastically raised the cost of building the networks. Marketing was also slow to begin, so paid subscribers did not sign up in the numbers that providers initially hoped, Mr. Phillis said.

In IT we like to test things before we sink money into them. Why would anyone believe that the Government could figure out anything to do with tech. Earthlink was clearly sucked in by “photo-op”, and no doubt figured they could make a crap load of money feeding ads to “the poor”.

Prices for Internet service on the broader market also began dropping to a level that, while above what many poor people could afford, was below what municipal Wi-Fi providers were offering, so the companies had to lower their rates even further, making investment in infrastructure even more risky, he said.

It’s called the market, folks. When Government stays out of the way, it works quite nicely. Time to learn the lesson folks.

BTW did notice the headline on the NYT article? It blames ISPs for pulling out of the projects. The blames lays squarely on the shoulders of Government and pie-eyed liberals for thinking the Government can do a better job than the market.

… but they did it in …

That doesn’t stop them though from pushing their Socialist agenda.

Mr. Meinrath said that advocates wanted to see American cities catch up with places like Athens, Leipzig and Vienna, where free citywide Wi-Fi is already available.

So? Is it any good? How is it paid for? Who runs it? Are ads forced on the users? Is there a fee? How much? What service that government should be providing, is cut for this “service”?

He said that true municipal networks, the ones that are owned and operated by municipalities, were far more sustainable because they could take into account benefits that help cities beyond private profit, including property-value increases, education benefits and quality-of-life improvements that come with offering residents free wireless access.

“Property Value increases”? “benefits that help cities”? What a crock. Nothing but Socialism.

Mr. Meinrath pointed to St. Cloud, Fla., which spent $3 million two years ago to build a free wireless network that is used by more than 70 percent of the households in the city.

How much tax revenue is lost because the network is not for profit? Why would anyone want a city to be like Athens, Leipzig, or Vienna? Hatred of America and Capitalism. Funny how they don’t look at what the cost to maintain the network are, how it compares cost and coverage wise to the Socialist versions in Europe, nor do they interview anyone form St. Cloud about the control that government has over the network, or if it even works. They also don’t mention that St. Cloud is a wealthy area. Nothing like misleading people so you can get your Socialism passed.

You may remember the Mayor of Philadelphia is an overpaid hack. He was hanging out on city time to buy an iPhone when they first came out. Yes that his him high-fiving the cow. These same hacks just received a $50,000 grant for this monstrosity of a system.

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