Minneapolis is one step closer to becoming a wireless city. The city is currently considering two proposals, one from Earthlink and one from local company US Internet, to construct and maintain a citywide wi-fi network. I do wish the city would own and operate its own network. Internet access has saturated the country to such a point and has become so critical to our infrastructure that it should be considered a public utility. However, the political realities confronting Minneapolis probably make public ownership unlikely. If the city moved in this direction, it would likely face legal action from the big telecoms like Qwest, much as Philadelphia did when it began planning its own municipal wi-fi network. But I am pleased to see that the proposed prices for wi-fi network could be substantially lower than what I’m paying now to Time Warner. If I can get consistent speeds of 6Mbps on the wi-fi network, I’ll gladly switch.
