Derrick
ლ(ಠ_ಠ )ლ
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2010
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Plans to cover the city of Chicago using WiFi have been scrapped because according to officials there would have been too few residents who would have signed on for the service and it was too costly.
It seems that most US citizens in the major cities already have a cheap broadband connection which is making it hard for municipalities to generate enough revenue from these projects to justify the expense.
According to a CNN article: “Tuesday’s announcement makes Chicago the latest in a string of municipalities to encounter troubles with their municipal broadband initiatives because of ballooning budgets and dwindling usage that’s led to scant revenue generated by the projects. About 175 U.S. cities or regions have citywide or partial systems.”
Whilst the broadband environment has changed quite dramatically in the US, with ubiquitous broadband available in most cities, South Africa is a step or two behind making municipal roll out of broadband services still a necessity.
But like their compatriots in the US, our municipalities only have a small window of opportunity to establish themselves as major players in this industry as the private sector is making rapid progress - as and when our legislative framework allows.
From where I sit, I simply don’t care who rolls out what as long as I can get a better service than what Telkom is limiting me to. An allowance of 3G’s is simply not adequate in this day and age where websites are becoming increasingly more bandwidth intensive, along with all the other applications I need to download to use the Net as a fully fledged member.
The full CNN article can be found here:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/08/29/wireless.chicago.ap/index.html
It seems that most US citizens in the major cities already have a cheap broadband connection which is making it hard for municipalities to generate enough revenue from these projects to justify the expense.
According to a CNN article: “Tuesday’s announcement makes Chicago the latest in a string of municipalities to encounter troubles with their municipal broadband initiatives because of ballooning budgets and dwindling usage that’s led to scant revenue generated by the projects. About 175 U.S. cities or regions have citywide or partial systems.”
Whilst the broadband environment has changed quite dramatically in the US, with ubiquitous broadband available in most cities, South Africa is a step or two behind making municipal roll out of broadband services still a necessity.
But like their compatriots in the US, our municipalities only have a small window of opportunity to establish themselves as major players in this industry as the private sector is making rapid progress - as and when our legislative framework allows.
From where I sit, I simply don’t care who rolls out what as long as I can get a better service than what Telkom is limiting me to. An allowance of 3G’s is simply not adequate in this day and age where websites are becoming increasingly more bandwidth intensive, along with all the other applications I need to download to use the Net as a fully fledged member.
The full CNN article can be found here:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/08/29/wireless.chicago.ap/index.html