Wireless Winston – A Pipe Dream?
Posted by JamesB in Commentary, Technology, tags: free, portland, wirelessThe promise of a low cost or free wireless access system for the city of Winston-Salem began roughly ten years ago with WinstonNet taking the lead in 2001. Winston-Salem was not the first to go down the road of wireless Internet Access for the masses and cities such as Portland, OR and Philadelphia, PA have rolled out projects much larger in scope and hope than WinstonNet however those hopes may be nothing more than a pipe dream at this point. Recently major backers of these large municipal projects such as Earthlink have backed out leaving the various cities literally talking to themselves over what to do. In fact a recent Philadelphia City Council Hearing on the status of the Earthlink contract with the city Earthlink didn’t even bother to show up.
Just about all the major cities with wireless plans have either tabled, stalled or given up on proceeding. Cities such as Chicago, Houston, Miami and San Francisco all had agreements with Earthlink and now have no idea if their projects will ever be developed. If these guys with the backing of an Internet Service Provider who of course was looking at making a profit fail what chance does Winston-Salem have of deploying the free or low cost wireless Internet service without the use of tax dollars? Read the rest of this entry �