Philadelphians are celebrating an agreement with Verizon which, they say, allows them to offer a citywide Wi-Fi network despite a law, signed (shamefully) by Governor Ed Rendell yesterday, aimed at stopping the municipal WiFi movement.
But they need to read the fine print.
Wetmachine has the story:
HB 30 prohibits the state or any municipality (or any municipally owned or operated entity) from providing any sort of telecom or broadband service for any kind of remuneration. The bill grandfathers any existing systems, tho, so no one will get cut off.
Sound good? Read on:
GOTCHA! The grandfathered municipality may only off service “of the same type and scope as were being provided on the day the act becomes effective.”
So municipal systems can operate, but not upgrade services. No increasing speed of delivery by a significant factor. No offering to provide voice or video services as the technology becomes available. Like a fly in amber, the municpal network is destined to become a fossil.
Philadelphia will back down. Other cities in Pennsylvania will back down. They have one year to make an irrevocable decision, to install WiFi on Verizon's terms. They will back down. They will do nothing.
As a result Pennsylvania will lose the future, because of Verizon's demand it be paid tomorrow for yesterday's mistakes, because Verizon is a monopoly with no concern for the public welfare, and because no one had the courage to stand against them.
Korea already has the future. China is getting the future. Even the developed world will have the future, in the form of wireless broadband in the air, unmetered, ready for use.
Philadelphia won't have it.
And, over time, it will lose its best and brightest to those places which do have it.
That, not the short term of an election, was at stake in Rendell's decision, and that is the cost of his sell-out yesterday. With Democrats like this, why shouldn't everyone be a Republican?
Ben Franklin would not be pleased. But, then again, he spent much of the second half of his life in England and France, where the technology was (for the time) state-of-the-art.
No dummy, that Franklin.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for over 25 years and has covered the online world professionally since 1985. He founded the "Interactive Age Daily" for CMP Media, and has written for the Chicago Tribune, Advertising Age, and dozens of other publications over the years.
1. Jesse Kopelman on December 1, 2004 01:56 PM writes...
Verizon made PA its bitch right around the turn of the milenium when they lobbied the state into wimping out of its plan to force the company to separate its retail and wholesale operations. I am positive if that plan had gone through the entire world would be profoundly different today.
If you read the bill, it lets municiaplities force telcos into provided better service within 14 months. This is really what the cities wanted, anyway. As someone who lived in PA for many years, I would much rather have service from Verizon or Comcast than any level of government. So, in a small way it is a victory for consumers. The thing is, you just know Verizon and Comcast will figure a way to weasel out of the parts of this new bill they don't like, if it becomes a law.
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