A San Francisco Chronicle editorial asks the Board of Supervisors to show an alternate Wi-Fi plan: The editors think that with EarthLink on the hook, minor quibbles should be swept away unless the board has a viable alternative plan that wouldn't involve an "experiment" with $10m of taxpayer dollars. It's a tricky position. San Francisco has received about as good a deal as any other city its size. Portland, Ore., is the sole exception, with free 1 Mbps ad-supported service from MetroFi. SF rejected MetroFi's proposal, and it would be good for the larger Wi-Fi community to see different models built in different large metropolitan areas to see which one works best, or if they all work equally well or poorly.
hmm
Portland is not the only better model. What about the Mountain View 1mb WiFi system that Google underwrote? Google just announced plans to move 900 employees into San Francisco
Why not get rid of EarthLink and let Google gift a similar 1mb WiFi system to San Francisco?
The city should do another RFP that incorporates the findings from the independent Budget Analyst report as well as the Fiber study which the city IT department is now apparently sitting on.
To the other anonymous poster that suggested that said let Google gift a similar 1 Mbps Wi-Fi system to SF... there's a simple problem with this... Google would have to offer to do so. They haven't.