QUOTE(palmer @ Feb 25 2007, 09:35 PM)
I do not see how the city government could provide this without an expense passed on to the community of users. While the cost would be minimal relative to scale, the prospect of offsetting with 'sponsorship' (see: advertising) is a dream. Advertising based services are not as easy as many would like to believe. It also takes expertise and experience, two things government entities do not have in these types of consumer services.
Sorry IT nerd reading this, I know you think you know the answers to this but you do not. Stick to what you do best, fixing PC's and pulling cable.
With the government handling this it will be at best a municipal service to its own agencies, not a replacement for ISP services in the service area.
Myself and a few partners have a business plan developed for launching municipality based WiFi services, Lancaster included. That being said, the government should not get into the arena of private enterprise services but I would welcome the competition and this decision will not alter our own plan.
One question the public should ask which will shed a lot of light on taxpayer expense and service reliability; Windows or Linux?
Windows or Linux? Who cares?? Sounds like you know just enough to get you in trouble and not enough to get you out.
It doesn't really matter since they are pc based operating systems. Whichever one the service uses is compatable with the other as far as internet service goes. Maybe you better listen to some of those guys pulling cables and fixing pc's instead of causing them to laugh at you behind your back.
It's fairly inexpensive for any business or organization that has a server to offer dial up service to their employees outside of work or for schools to have dial up that goes to the school servers. The same thing can be done with wireless but you're going to have the big companies fighting it. THAT's what will cost money, not the implementation. It is very easy to have a system that requires log-on, even wirelessly, just ask the coffee shops, Issacs or the airport that offers it. The signal can be free, but you won't go further than a home page if you can't log in. You can't log in without an account and that is where they make their money.
Whoever controls the wireless routers controls the login page, the proxy server and the security level. Otherwise, everyone would be buying broadband cards and using them at-will instead of having to get accounts through verizon. They'd be using free-cellphone service, they'd be hijacking radio stations and using a reciever to pick up satellite radio without an account. Just because it's wireless doesn't mean it's free. Take a class in cryptology.
Sounds like you should do more homework before you "set out on your own".
btw, is there ANYTHING you aren't nasty and hateful about?
