The Government Shouldn’t Encroach On Private Enterprise

• October 14, 2005

Plans are afoot in Philadelphia and Huntsville, Alabama, as well as my hometown of San Francisco, to provide residents with low-cost or free wireless internet access. It’s a great idea whose time has come, like drinking fountains, public toilets and park benches. But last week, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that my city’s mayor expects a legal challenge from internet service providers like SBC and Comcast, who presumably prefer every San Franciscan to pay a monthly access fee.
Obviously, ISPs fear competition from a free service. But people pay for bottled water, music downloads, open-source operating systems and printed versions of free blogs. Companies can still make money in cities with public Wi-Fi by selling even faster service or bundling connectivity with subscriptions, software or support.

Read the whole thing.
Granick details a number of private ISP arguments against government-provided wireless internet access, but she leaves out another major perspective: What about the tax payers?
We must remember that “free wireless internet access” provided by the government is not really free. Everybody will be paying for it, and they’ll likely be paying at the bloated prices most government programs are famous for. And that’s a problem, not just because private ISP companies would undoubtedly run a more efficient and cost-effective wireless network but also because while everybody would be paying for the government-backed network not everybody would be using it.

Those of us who are regular internet users take it for granted that everybody is doing it. The reality is that not everybody is doing it. It doesn’t make sense to make all of the citizens pay for a service that is universally needed or wanted.
Another point to remember is that the “free” wireless access probably isn’t going to be the same quality most avid internet users are accustomed to. I’ve heard rumor’s that San Francisco’s proposed network would top out at about 300kbps. While that’s significantly faster than dialup its pretty dang slow when compared to the average broadband connection. Which means that a lot of the “internet elite” are probably going to opt for a private ISP service to take advantage of better access speeds. Yet they’d still be paying taxes on that “free” service.
And none of this even touches on privacy issues. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not all that keen on letting some city clerk keep tabs on where I go on the internet. Plus, what happens when some busy-body politician gets it in his or her mind to start putting limits on what you can and cannot see through your tax-funded internet connection? I don’t think that’s a political road we want to go down.
Government-backed wireless doesn’t make sense. It will create more government bureaucracy, increase the tax burden on citizens and will likely be ignored by those who use the internet the most. Not to mention the chilling effect competing with a “free” service will have on private ISP technology innovation.

Tags: Politics

http://Array WOOF

OK you go with Comcast, I’ll go with the people who bring water to my tap.
robert108

Election is an incentive to deceive, not to be efficient. Enron is the perfect example of what is wrong with public utils. They traded in a commodity whose real market value is unknown. Thus the failure. Enron is not an example of private enterprise, it is an example of the failure of alliances between govt enterprise and the public trust. Enron profited under Clinton and went broke under Bush. You figure it out.
http://sayanythingblog.com/2005/11/29/new-orleans-announces-city-wide-inter Say Anything – North Dakota&#8

&heellip; Call me crazy, but maybe New Orleans should focus on reducing the threat of hurricanes and flooding to the city before they start worrying about blanket wi-fi coverage. Not to mention all the other reasons why tax-funded “free” internet connections are stupid. &heellip;
robert108

I guess that is public benefit.
Sigivald

Woof: Who loses their job in an election if SF’s wireless system doesn’t work very well?

Nobody is elected “wireless accountability guy”, so he can’t lose his non-job. The Mayor? I doubt anyone would blame the Mayor for such a thing, or that it would cost an election. Local councilmen (if SF has such a thing, I don’t know how SF local government works)? Likewise, none of them are really accountable for it; they have no real power over it, and who’s going to vote someone out over that?

Elections are great at keeping politicians accountable for major things that people hold them personally responsible for. Wireless access just isn’t one of those things.

“It would be nice if everyone had X” is not a sufficient argument for the proposition “the government can and should provide X”, let alone “the government would do better providing X itself”.

If you want a chance of making headway here, suggest government incentives for people to make their own 802.11 wireless networks publicly accessible, as is increasingly popular with restaurants and coffee-shops.
http://neubranderinc.com/blog/ nobrainer

If Google wants to provide the service for free, let them. But at the same time let any other company capable do the same thing.

The last thing I would want to see is for a city to contract with one company. As WOOF complains about Comcast, THE problem with cable is that you get one choice of company, depending where you live. You end up with high prices, a bunch of channels you don’t want, and a company that probably isn’t very well run because it barely has to compete to survive.
robert108

Public Utility=Taxpayer supported monopoly
http://SayAnythingBlog.com The_Whistler_ofnd

I’m sure having free internet all over will be a boon for Sex Perverts and web criminals.
robert108

Glad you mentioned public utilities. As the recent “energy crisis” illustrates, it’s high time to make utils private. After all, since utils, at least like electricity, have always been publicly subsidized monopolies, we do not know the real price(market price). Besides, private utils would not constantly have supply probs, if we get the enviro extremists out of the picture. It is wrong for the govt to confiscate our pay for the purpose of competing with private enterprise in any area. The govt has no incentive to be efficient. On the contrary, they have incentive to constantly increase their budgets. So what? It’s not their money, after all.
http://peatbog.net/ Sphagnum

I heard about the idea for San Francisco, since it’s relatively close to where I live, and if it’s the same idea that I heard about, IT IS FREE.

I believe it was google, can’t remember for sure, wanted to provide free wi-fi access all around the city. The only catch is that when you sign on, you are automatically directed to google’s special homepage where they make their money on advertising. It’s kinda like Juno and Netzero ISPs a couple years back that gave out free dial-up internet as long as you sat there and stared at their internet ad banner while you were logged on. I had it and that thing was annoying so i payed a few bucks to upgrade.

Similar setup here. If you want the ad-free version, you are going to have to get comcast or SBC.
WOOF

The govt has no incentive to be efficient.

The incentive is called election.

Think privatize, think Enron.
WOOF

likely be paying at the bloated prices .

Doubt it will be more expensive than my cable provider and I am going to guess the service will be better.

Look at conectivity as a public utility like roads and water. You want to buy a quart of Evian go ahead, or go to the kitchen faucet if you prefer.

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