Stifling broadband penetration

Wired Magazine had an article that caught my attention this month "Why Your Broadband Sucks". It talks of the efforts by the City of Philadelphia to provide free WiFi throughout their municipalities, that was eventually thwarted and vetoed out by the telecom lobby.

I am not a communist, but I did feel that Philly was going in the right direction by increasing the availability of broadband to its constituents by providing free broadband. The emergence of such services may lead to greater innovation and other new services that may benifit us all. Unfortunately the threatened telecos made their fright clear by preventing this from happening - dampening the rate of provision of broadband access to underserved communities in the interest of keeping their stronghold on high speed Internet.

The solution is not to fire private enterprise; it is instead to encourage more competition. Communities across the country are experimenting with ways to supplement private service. And these experiments are producing unexpected economic returns. Some are discovering that free wireless access increases the value of public spaces just as, well, streetlamps do. And just as streetlamps don't make other types of lighting obsolete, free wireless access in public spaces won't kill demand for access in private spaces. In economoid-speak, these public services may well provide positive externalities. Yet we will never recognize these externalities unless municipalities are free to experiment. That's why the bipartisan Silicon Valley advocacy group TechNet explicitly endorses allowing local governments to compete with broadband providers.

Also interesting is Wired's interview with Verizon's VP of Broadband solutions, Marilyn O'Connel, where she says:

From the citizen's perspective, it sure seems like you're trying to prevent wireless access from becoming a basic public utility. Shouldn't bandwidth be free?
A lot of things would have to come together before you have the kind of coverage that would allow people to say, "I don't need any other bandwidth, I can just go and plug into the city's network." I don't see that governments are going to supply that kind of service in such a broad, ubiquitous way. The reality is, to have the kind of broadband-rich networks you need, private companies have to come forward.

Somehow that last answer didn't make too much sense to me....