Low income people can afford equipment to use this cheap access?

Awesome. I wonder what kinda security they are going to use to enforce that payment. I never did understand how one would go about doing so.

I'm sure that streaming video and lighting-fast access to Ebay will take everybody's minds off of all the murders, drugs and whores in Philly.

Typical leftist city government. Don't do your job and make people safe, oh no. Worry about free DSL.

Is Broadband an essential service? Or has only Philly's elected reps deemed it so? Would such a thing be worthwile where I live?

"Wireless community groups aren't arguing that people shouldn't have to pay the company that is giving them broadband. Nor are they trying to resell broadband access to other people. They just want to share some of the broadband they've paid for – in the same way you might give your neighbor a glass of water out of the pipes you've paid to use, or let a friend use your toilet without paying for every flush."

http://www.sfbg.com/36/37/cover_wireless.html

I find it despicable that a local government thinks it can steal business, along with tax financing on top of it, from private firms to fund their latest political schemes to compete with those other firms.

Wireless drug trafficking. Good going Philly, as if SMS and mobile phones weren't bad enough.

You laugh, but it's going to be all too true.

It's interesting that Verizon is offering DSL there for $14.95 per month, but now the city as a municipal is planning to offer slower WiFi Internet access for $20 per month in a deal with Earthlink? Something's missing here...;) If I can get DSL for $14.95, why would I want slower wireless for $20? Also, if I'm so poor as to not to be able to afford $14.95 a month for DSL, what are the chances that I can afford $9.95 a month, not counting the computer I'll need to access the web through WiFi?

I'm concerned that the $9.95-$20 per month price tag won't be the source of the project's income but that it'll be funded out of local tax revenues (well, I'm not personally concerned since I don't live there...) Where are all of these "additional monies" for so-called public projects going to come from, I wonder, if not from the local tax-revenue kitty? What's this really--an excuse for local politicians to raise local taxes? I worry that other municipalities will follow suit just to use "WiFi access" as an excuse to raise taxes.

Something just doesn't add up. The thought strikes me that it would have been far cheaper for the city to simply subsidize $5 a month for low-income people to access Verizon's faster DSL at $14.95, and let the low-income people who wanted it pick up the same $9.95 monthly fee themselves. I mean, if your actual goal is to provide low-cost Internet access to low-income people, this would be the way to do it. But then Verizon would be getting the income and not the local municipality, which probably explains it perfectly.

oink oink.

(presuming this is government funded)