[CWN-Summit] Re: Mayor prorosed giving away public resources for ATT "free" wifi

[Harold Feld]

At 08:48 PM 2/3/2007, Michael Oh wrote:
>Now, I do qualify this by saying that the Boston model - based on the
>establishment of a non-profit organization that forces structural
>separation between the wholesale and retail sides of the network -
>has not been proven either.  If anything, our ideas have slowed the
>progress in Boston while the city has to try to find the funding to
>make the model work.  But we do feel confident that, even if slow,
>the Boston approach (or any similar approach that double-checks all
>the details) is still better in the end.

Mike, this is exactly right.

Getting pressured into a wrong deployment because a real 
community-based deployment is "too slow" is a recipe for 
disaster.  It's like cutting out mandatory building code safety 
features to get a tunnel done on time. :-)  In the end, you pay far 
more by trying to short cut the process than you do by having a 
reasonably paced build out.

Harold