This is a longer-than-normal GeezerCast ’cause I’m trying to encapsulate why I’m not keen on municipal WiFi projects and I couldn’t quite fit it into the normal 10 minute slot.

One of the things that has me bugged is that these projects don’t look like they’ll ever make money. I went so far as to post a financial model out there on the ‘net. Let’s do a little open-source financial modeling here and get these numbers out into the light of day instead of in the heads of the Voodoo consultants who are making lots of money walking cities down the primrose path.

If you don’t like my (wildly unprofitable) model, fix it! I’d love to be proven wrong — but right now it looks to me like we’re not solving the digital divide, we’re distracting ourselves from the real issue of open-access networks, and we’re putting cities on the hook for some very expensive project failures down the line.

So there! 🙂

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