Lompoc's WiFi Brings Red Ink

The frustrating thing is that we've seen communities do this before when it comes to building their own bandwidth. In this case it's just a new form of it.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,274728,00.html

A $3 million plan to blanket Lompoc, Calif., with a wireless Internet system promised a quantum leap for economic development: The remote community hit hard by cutbacks at nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base would join the 21st century with cheap and plentiful high-speed access.

Instead, nearly a year after its launch, Lompoc Net is limping along. The central California city of 42,000, surrounded by rolling hills, wineries and flower fields more than 17 miles from the nearest major highway, has only a few hundred subscribers.

That's far fewer than the 4,000 needed to start repaying loans from the city's utility coffers, potentially leaving smaller reserves to guard against electric rate increases.

Lompoc isn't alone. Across the United States, many cities are finding their Wi-Fi projects costing more and drawing less interest than expected, leading to worries that a number will fail, resulting in millions of dollars in wasted tax dollars or grants when there had been roads to build and crime to fight.

National What Safety Month?

Yep, it's national internet safety month.


http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/06/06/do-obama-and-lieberman-think-the-internet-is-dangerous/

Does Joe Lieberman hate the internet? Is Barack Obama trying to scare you? Welcome to National Internet Safety Month. Its sole purpose? Reminding America how dangerous the internet is.

I’m not kidding. That’s the gist of an official resolution, quietly signed by 18 U.S. Senators in both parties at the end of May (including Senators Obama and Lieberman). Senate Resolution 207 specified that the month of June provides Americans an opportunity to “learn more about the dangers of the Internet.” Got anything positive to say about the net? Save it for July, pal. June is for commending organizations which “promote awareness of the dangers of the Internet.”

They might as well call it internet-is-dangerous month. But let’s look at some of their examples. What constitutes a danger? If someone puts a filter on your computer to censor it — it’s dangerous to disable it! You can say this about America’s youth — more than 3 out of 10 can de-activate censor-ware, according to the Senators’ own statistics. Congratulations, kids! Whoops, I’m sorry — I mean…danger!!

MS For And Now Against Software Patents

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2007/06/09/bill-gatess-flip-flop/

In today’s New York Times, I make the case against software patents, comparing a 1991 memo by Bill Gates to today’s battle between Verizon and Vonage:

[Microsoft general counsel Brad] Smith has argued that patents are essential to technological breakthroughs in software. Microsoft sang a very different tune in 1991. In a memo to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” Mr. Gates worried that “some large company will patent some obvious thing” and use the patent to “take as much of our profits as they want….”

It’s not surprising that Microsoft — now an entrenched incumbent — has had a change of heart. But Mr. Gates was right in 1991: patents are bad for the software industry. Nothing illustrates that better than the conflict between Verizon and Vonage.

Vonage developed one of the first Internet telephone services and has attracted more than two million customers. But last year, Verizon — one of Vonage’s biggest competitors — sued for patent infringement and won a verdict in its favor in March.

The Times has strict word-count limits, so I didn’t have the space to discuss some of the details of my argument. Here is an in-depth analysis of Verizon’s patents. And here is a longer discussion of Microsoft’s change of heart on software patents.