Addison, Texas, lights up its network: The citywide network launched Tuesday in this Dallas suburb. The mayor note sin this Austin American Statesman article that they are the first citywide wireless city in Texas.
A quote from an Institute for Policy Innovation's Barry Arons sets the wrong tone, though: "I find it to be a very, very severe problem and very unsavory when the city says this will be the only game in town, and it will be financed and operated by the taxpayers," he said.
Arons didn't mind Addison's private-public partnership with RedMoon, which built and is operating the network. But I'd like to see Arons and others both pro and con on the municipal wireless front be less soundbite-like about the "only game in town" part. I haven't seen any plans in which the city or town becomes a monopoly.
I have seen some plans in which private companies will receive access to utility and city facilities, like poles, conduits, and building tops. Whether that's exclusive or reduced rate really defines whether a givne network is economically viable as the only game in town.
Glenn,
I think the "only game in town" rhetoric, cute as it may be, is fair in the sense that no municipality intends to be a monopoly (as I've heard Dianah Neff and Jim Baller say) but they are destined to become exactly that.
It's not unlike when cities build out fiber to provide video and broadband only to drive the incumbent out of business after a series of unsustainable price cuts. I know this was the case in Lexington, KY (Baller said it at an event earlier this summer), where the cableco eventually fled town because it couldn't withstand competing with the city. It's not hard to imagine this being the case with wireless, as a small ISP in Philadelphia recently pointed out (http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/opinion/local2/12411471.htm).