A Wireless City - It could be coming

Philadelphia mulls wireless society


PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- For about $10 million, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot.

The ambitious plan, now in the works, would involve placing hundreds, or maybe thousands of small transmitters around the city -- probably atop lampposts. Each would be capable of communicating with the wireless networking cards that now come standard with many computers.

Once complete, the network would deliver broadband Internet almost anywhere radio waves can travel -- including poor neighborhoods where high-speed Internet access is now rare.

And the city would likely offer the service either for free, or at costs far lower than the $35 to $60 a month charged by commercial providers, said the city's chief information officer, Dianah Neff.

www.cnn.com... ml

Neff estimated it would cost about $10 million to pay for the initial infrastructure for the system, plus $1.5 million a year to maintain.

I don't know... anyone else feel that this is "Big Brother" reaching out once again ??

"Big Brother".. BLAH.. so what? How hard is it to trace internet traffic right now?
As I look at it, One step closer to Earth becomeing a united whole, and anything that can help that, I say great!

I see almost every city in the world having this within around 10 years.....10 million is nothing really for a city that size.

Any chance of that coming to near San Franciso, I hate not being able to check internet while stuck in traffic.

tbrnews.nminews.com...

other cities are doing it too...

imo, its kind of a big waste of money...I mean, do people really need to access the internet anywhere in the city? hotspots seem more practical

Very good idea. I would like to see this happening more often in the future. Especially if you go fishing, it would be ALOT safer

Sydney' CBD is almost wireless,
whereis.com.au:80... les&latitude=-33.868874&longitude=151.20812&navId=$0100208IA0OL9$&brandId=1&advertiserId=Intel&requiredZoomLevel=3

Sanc'.

Originally posted by prevx
tbrnews.nminews.com...

other cities are doing it too...

imo, its kind of a big waste of money...I mean, do people really need to access the internet anywhere in the city? hotspots seem more practical

I think the same about mobile phones, but everyone has one now.

I leave mine at home, I don't like the fact that anyone can contact me anytime, where-ever I am, whatever I'm doing - if I do take it out, it's switched off.

What happened to privacy!

I can totally see how this could be a 'Big Brother' tool.

We drop cell phones for say a microchip communicator, the microchip can be sent information (commercials! ) by these little transmitters all around the town.

One would never get any peace, junkmail and infomercials wired into your eye-balls 24/7!!

To bad I don't live anywhere close to Philadelphia anymore. Having internet accesss anywhere you go there for a chance of it even being free. I think that good.

Originally posted by elevatedone
I don't know... anyone else feel that this is "Big Brother" reaching out once again ??

Exactly what I was thinking. IMHO, the Government needs to stay the hell out of stuff like this, and let private companies take care of it. Speaking of which, isn't there a law forbidding the government from competing with private buisness? I could be wroing on this.