The debate over whether Wi-Fi delivery should remain in the hands of corporate america or whether it should move toward public utility status is heating up. New York Gets Wired provides a sample of the kind of rhetoric that will be slung across the political aisles in municipal, state, and federal legislative chambers. One of the points that NYC Public Advocate candidate, Andrew Rasiej, makes is that the children of some parts of NYC are falling behind other coutries:
“Today most students in our public schools can only get access to a computer for one measly hour a week. That explains why kids in South Korea have better and faster access to the U.S. library of Congress online than kids in the South Bronx”
Rasiej also makes an interesting case in the name of public safety that I had not seen before.
I am not compltely ready to weigh in on this debate, in part because I feel certain that a one-size-fits-all solution does not apply universally across the US. Some municipalities are better equipped to handle the challenges of delivering Wi-Fi than others. Partnerships between business and municipalities need to be better explored rather than jumping into a new, unfamiliar utility system. There are a number of possibilities for rational minds to explore...but instead, I fully expect a red vs blue debate to ensue with students becoming the pawns of the game.
Nonetheless, I want my Wi-Fi!