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Michael considered fate at 11:39   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

Have you read that last post and think I'm crazy? Well, I might be wrong but I'm not crazy - the telltale signs are out there. It's actually fairly obvious and I'm far from the first, second, or one thousandth person to think about it.

The New York Times is running an editorial wherein an Oregon official states WiFi should be a utility:

..broadband is just the next step in expanding the national infrastructure, comparable to the transcontinental railroad, the national highway system and rural electrification. Indeed, we need to envision broadband Internet access as just another utility, like electricity or water. Often the best way to provide that will be to blanket a region with Wi-Fi coverage..

The article focuses on what is probably one of the world's largest "hot spots" - in Hermiston, Oregon, an area of low-population farm land - where high-speed wifi internet is available for free over 600 square miles. From the author:

Driving along the road here, I used my laptop to get e-mail and download video - and you can do that while cruising at 70 miles per hour, mile after mile after mile, at a transmission speed several times as fast as a T-1 line. (Note: it's preferable to do this with someone else driving.)

This kind of network is the wave of the future, and eastern Oregon shows that it's technically and financially feasible. New York and other leading cities should be embarrassed..

The very fact that people are thinking of wireless broadband internet as something that should be free - something that should be provided as a government service just like tarred roads, police, and electricity - is a sure sign that information is becoming as important as, well, tarred raods, police, and electricity. Important enough to force itself on us? Or perhaps we're the addicts instead, seeking it out like so many cracked out heroin users, wandering the streets aimlessly searching for free wifi spots, going so far as to jack into the access points of unsuspecting broadband subscribers who have unwittingly left their security open, breaking the law to get the information we need.

Gosh I love being dramatic. After all I was one of those theatre geeks in grade school, yah know.