A Stitch in Haste

The New York Times provides an opportunity to update my previous post on Philadelphia's proposal to provide free Wi-Fi Internet access:

8 percent of online consumers said they had tried accessing the Web through wireless connections. About half said they had no need or desire to do so. And because many of Philadelphia's households have no computer - let alone a computer with an Internet connection - the city's numbers would fall far below those figures.
...
Philadelphia would not become a municipal Internet company. "This won't be government-run," she said. Among other options, the city could pass the project to a management company, which would build and run the system in exchange for user fees.
...
The wireless initiative would also improve education, [a city official] said, because children would have better access to information, and parents could communicate more effectively with teachers. Because more than 70 percent of the city's students qualify for economic assistance, she said, few families currently can afford to do that.

"The reason we won't just let the market do this is that there are societal needs that aren't inherently part of the capitalist system. We need to be sure no communities in Philadelphia are excluded, whether there's an R.O.I. or not," [the official] said, using the initials for return on investment.

Now, you can't have it both ways. This program must either be the city collecting some revenue from its streetlights, which it would rent out to private firms that would provide the Wi-Fi access (an okay idea), or it's the city disrupting the "capitalist system" because some poor kids (who probably don't have computers anyway) can somehow benefit from free or subsidized Wi-Fi access (not an okay idea).

So which is it?

Press the advocates of municipal Wi-Fi a little further, and the answer becomes perfectly clear:

[Hermosa Beach city council member] Mr. Keegan said he was not worried that the service might hurt existing Internet providers. "Should I care? I'm not a shareholder," he said. "I'm more concerned about residents, and they love it."

Again, I don't think poor kids with no laptop love it very much.

Finally, as I blog-queried before, how likely is it that a local government will be able to stay on top of a technology evolving as rapidly as wireless Internet access?

City government may be poorly suited to oversee such things as network security and customer service, he said. And with the advent of new wireless technologies like the Wi-Max standard, in which transmitters could send signals 30 miles instead of 300 feet, the city risks adopting a system destined for obsolescence.

There is way too much overthinking going on here. Wireless internet access is not a public good (it's perfectly excludable). There is therefore no justification whatsoever for it to be publicly provided. Those concerned about wireless Internet access for the poor (besides having severe priority issues) should consider vouchers or a comparable program.

It's interesting that the arguments for municipal Wi-Fi seem analogous to rural electrification during the New Deal. I would respond more fully, but that would take a whole other major blog post. Short answer: "Electricity = Wi-Fi?" I don't think so. That would be like saying "Indoor toilets = marble hot tubs." (Note also the continued existence, in the Twenty-First Century!, of possibly the most pernicious boondoggle in American history, the Tennessee Valley Authority.)

Hat tip to Glittering Eye.

UPDATE #1: Dave Schuler of Glittering Eye quite rightly observes that I misread his post -- he was referring to the initial electrification of the country under Thomas Edison et al, not rural electrification via government subsidization programs such as the TVA. I have Orwelled the post accordingly.

UPDATE #2: Technology Liberation Front has similar thoughts.