Debating municipal wifi via wiki

Philadelphia Inquirer's Daniel Rubin blogs on Bling about Prof. John Palfrey's students' debate over Philadelphia's wireless Internet program. 

Currently 58 percent of Philadelphia's families are online from home. The city of Philadelphia "plans to rent out 4,000 utility poles to Earthlink, which will own the network, sell wireless for between $10 and $20-a-month to the public, offer daily and weekly rates for travelers and create 22 free hotspots." (For more info on the plan, please check out JP's class wiki links)

John Palfrey's Internet and Politics students are debating the merits of Philly's wifi experiment online via wiki. Rubin describes their positions:

The two students, named Krista and Mathieu, took the view that the Philadelphia experiment will improve public information and safety, bridge the digital divide, stimulate innovation, boost the economy, serve as model for government involvement in Internet access and kick-start e-democracy.

Here's the gloomier view, presented by a duo named Ryan and Sameer. Cheap wireless doesn't help those without computers, they say, so what Philadelphia's project will really do is help those who are already on the web. Earthlink's plan will cost more and serve fewer people than expected -- they say the business plan presented "dangerously inaccurate estimates and figures for the costs and revenue associated with building the wireless network." The whole idea of municipal wifi hasn't worked elsewhere -- check out Seattle and Orlando.

You can take a look at the affirmative arguments here and the negative case here. 

Curious about Internet & Politics discussions? Check out John Palfrey's blog.