Muni-Fi: Still Not Working

This isn’t exactly news, but city-run wi-fi projects are expensive and worthless — and businesses aren’t getting much out of their investments in them.  Via TLF’s Adam Thierer, WSJ‘s Ben Charny has the goods:

Many cities with wireless networks say that there’s been little demand for their premium services and that technology issues have limited the networks’ reach. Moreover, while businesses were willing to invest in advertising on these single-city networks, they complain about very little return on their investment.

Given that the regional networks share the same business model, doubts about a return on investment have spread to projects under way. As a consequence, businesses once willing to fully fund such projects have had a change of heart and want substantial help from other partners involved. This new paradigm has forced those trying to create regional wireless networks to rethink their options midstream.

My old colleague Cord Blomquist, of course, was way ahead of the curve on this.