Tuesday, June 08, 2004
Reasons to raise our taxes
Discuss
This article in the New York Times(Reg Required) discusses the fact that it is hard to make money providing wireless internet access because so many people are giving it away. In New York City you can walk down the street and get access from any number of free access points. Many local governments are getting on the band wagon and doing their best to provide services to their citizens. If Houston decided to ‘wire’ the city with wireless, do you think it would help the cities image? Do you think that it would help bring people out of the suburbs and back to the city core? I’d chip in a couple extra bucks every year if I knew I could take my laptop anywhere and get work done.
From a trends stand point, I think the commercial opportunity is going to be installing the equipment for governments and not in providing the actual services to end users, much like the way the highway system works.
This article in the New York Times(Reg Required) discusses the fact that it is hard to make money providing wireless internet access because so many people are giving it away. In New York City you can walk down the street and get access from any number of free access points. Many local governments are getting on the band wagon and doing their best to provide services to their citizens. If Houston decided to ‘wire’ the city with wireless, do you think it would help the cities image? Do you think that it would help bring people out of the suburbs and back to the city core? I’d chip in a couple extra bucks every year if I knew I could take my laptop anywhere and get work done.
From a trends stand point, I think the commercial opportunity is going to be installing the equipment for governments and not in providing the actual services to end users, much like the way the highway system works.
