[1st-mile-nm] Facing economic realities of muni Wi-Fi

[Dewayne Hendricks]

Facing economic realities of muni Wi-Fi
[SOURCE: C-Net|News.com, AUTHOR: Marguerite Reardon]

In the movement to blanket cities with Wi-Fi, economic realities are  
setting in as service providers look to tweak their business models  
to turn a profit. Since the municipal Wi-Fi movement started taking  
shape a couple of years ago, politicians, community organizers and  
the companies building the networks have touted Wi-Fi as a cheap  
solution to a myriad social and economic problems plaguing cities  
today. Some cities see it as a way to bridge the digital divide,  
while others see Wi-Fi as providing a third alternative to a  
broadband market dominated by the cable and phone companies. Up to  
this point, the financial risk has mostly fallen on the service  
providers that have put up the capital to build the wireless mesh  
networks. These companies are spending millions of dollars on their  
initiatives with mostly no guarantee that they will ever turn a  
profit. Now as operators move beyond proof-of-concept networks, they  
are re-evaluating their business models to ensure they can make  
money. This means carefully selecting the cities where they want to  
build networks and demanding more assurances from cities that they  
can get enough subscribers to make building the network worthwhile.

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