I just received this notice from a contact at the City Council. Everyone should attend if they can (unfortunately I won’t be able to go) and report back.
Very curious too that:
(a) The report from Diamond Consultants is only about the digital divide, since I was under the impression that the research was supposed to be [...]

Earthlink today announced that they are discontinuing their Philadelphia muni-wireless network. Apparently, the company has been trying to work with the city and Wireless Philadelphia (the non-profit formed by the city originally to manage the Wi-Fi network) to transition the wireless network assets and maintain its operation.
Those discussions have fallen apart, and now Earthlink has [...]

The Ethos Group announces our first Masters of the Muni-Verse Challenge, a contest to identify and share the best free online resources available on municipal and community broadband with fabulous prizes.
Send us your recommendations for the best freely available municipal broadband resources by filling out our online entry form at http://www.ethoswireless.com/mastersofthemuniverse. We’ll choose the [...]

To whom it may concern at the Heartland Institute,
In your story, “Google Sponsors Bryant Park Wi-Fi”, published in the November issue of IT&T News, Mr. Steven Titch makes a number of factual mistakes.
Specifically, NYCwireless (the correct name and spelling for our organization) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization formed and run by volunteers from [...]

Also published on the Wireless Community blog
I’m a big fan of what’s going on in Philadelphia, but this article in The Philadelphia Inquirer has me thinking that maybe all of this talk about the end user cost of muni-networks is, in part, wrong.
One way that most Community Wireless networks are different from other broadband [...]

Bruce Fein, a former general counsel for the FCC under President Reagan, published a letter to the editor in today’s New York Times. He claims that Nicholas D. Kristof’s recent column “wrongly chastises New York for neglecting to emulate the citywide wireless networks in rural Oregon” due to far greater cost of deploying Wi-Fi in [...]

A bill just introduced in Congress would take away the right of cities and towns across the country to provide citizens with universal, low-cost Internet access.
Giant cable and telephone companies don’t want any competition–which might actually force them to offer lower prices, higher speeds and service to rural and urban areas.
U.S. Rep. Pete [...]

As reported via MuniWireless, Maine has become the first state to explicitly allow municipalities to create broadband networks. This is a great development for the growth of free choice and locally driven broadband network creation. This is a very progressive stance, and one that is exactly opposite of the restrictive policies of number of other [...]