Why Fi? Connectivity as a utility

Several cities in the US have committed to or are considering providing WiFi connectivity as a public utility. Just as we have public electricity, transport, sewerage and water supplies, so should we have Internet connectivity to our doorsteps. Now I couldn't agree more. However it has to be said that in so doing we potentially undermine established and future businesses. One emerging 'provider' of sorts is FON, a collective of WiFi users who intentionally open up their bandwidth (plenty of people do it unintentionally too). Now those people are buying bandwidth from an ISP, often using ADSL and copper wire. So a public WiFi network circumvents the need either for FON or for the underlying ADSL connection. Someone loses, somewhere. Now this is how it works anyway - you can't expect new players or technologies to back off and leave you alone just because - so I don't blame companies or organisations trying new models.

But we may have a problem when governments start to 'compete' as it were, or to in effect subsidise one delivery method over another. Local government infrastructure is great in providing cheaper connectivity to a broader range of the community - got to like that - but it does lock in an economic distortion. By subsidising WiFi you are advantaging WiFi over ADSL, WiMAX or any other delivery mechanism. What are the consequences in 5, 10 or 20 years time? Infoworld has a story on San Francisco's WiFi plans here.