GREENSBORO, NC -- Andrew Brod and I have entered the City of Greensboro's Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) Challenge, the federally sponsored contest soliciting ideas to improve Greensboro's economy. Our proposal is for Greensboro to build on its existing web of municipal fiber optic cables and Wi-Fi hot spots to provide public Wi-Fi throughout the city.
We believe recent advancements in Wi-Fi technologies and this year's approval by the FCC of new radio spectrum for Wi-Fi make this idea a real possibility.
We suggest that the benefits will include:
We suggest that the benefits will include:
- Providing internet access to underserved populations.
- Lowering the cost of starting and running a business.
- Inspiring homegrown innovation in wearables, mobile and the Internet of Things.
- Supporting the efforts of Guilford County Schools to better connect students to the educational resources of the Internet.
You can learn more about our proposal at Cityfi.org
Unfortunately, the General Assembly, at the behest of the cable industry, has banned local-government wifi. Wilson, NC, which already had such a system, was grandfathered in, but everyone else is screwed.
ReplyDeleteRemind me again how the GOP is supposed to be the party of business?
That's not correct.
ReplyDeleteAs we address at Cityfi.org, the General Assembly passed a law that puts onerous hurdles in the way of municipalities that want to start their own fee-for-service internet services. As the law quite clearly states, those restrictions do not apply to free services, which is what we are proposing.
Also, while you are correct that law was written at the behest of Time Warner Cable (as the bill's sponsor admitted), its sponsor was a Democrat and it was allowed to become law without the veto of the then-Democratic governor.
ReplyDelete