Cleveland is ground zero again
If you pick up a Free Times this week, I’m quoted in an article by Michael Gill on page 14 titled Cleveland: Who, What, Where, Wi-Fi with the subtitle of “America’s poorest city is ground zero in a telecom war”.
It follows the article Is Low-Cost Wi-Fi Un-American?. I highly recommend you reading them and as soon as they’re up at FreeTimes.com, I’ll link to them.
Just a couple of things I want to point out:
- The letter from SBC Ohio president to Joe Roman
- Her refusal to comment
- OneCleveland president Scot Rourke refusing to comment
- No comment from Lev Gonick, but a very funny cartoon of him
- Lots of Chris Ronayne including him estimating the Water Department alone saving $4M a MONTH
- Michael Gill framing the service “[a]s an equalizer on par with [’free’] access to public education”
I put quotes around that last bit for all my anal retentive BFD readers who would argue that public education isn’t free. I would also point out my conservative republican friends that a municipal wireless access doesn’t mean free internet access. In Philadelphia’s case, “a social service non-profit… began to offer wireless broadband for just $5 a month”. Michael Gill writes:
[There’s] anecdotal evidence about children improving their attendence and parents starting samll businesses. Students in the neighborhood have been trained to do the repair and other troubleshooting. As of December, more than 100 students have been through the training program, and more than half have received paid technology internships with local companies.
The emphasis is mine.
So what’s the issue here? Why aren’t we doing this yet?
This post was written by George, source: Cleveland is ground zero again
