With New York City playing flip-flop on the idea of forming and creating a city-wide WiFi network, one would
think there would be cheerleaders on both sides - naturally - and there would be some kind of movement as other large
cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco press ahead with their city WiFi plans. Sure, NYC started on the WiFi
bandwagon long before its rivals, but things keep staving off the movement as special interests and other slogs
continue throwing sand on the flame.Mayor Bloomberg insists that the free market (private sector) should take the reins and create the NYC WiFi network - or a wireless/wired hybrid network - without city involvement. But, with such a large project at stake, will private businesses and companies even want to look at a city-wide wireless network without *any* city or civic involvement? Who knows. The idea needs to be kept on the table of course, so that sometime (and we're waiting), NYC can get it on and start the network that will liberate hundreds of small businesses and other enterprising individuals from the doldrums of creaky internet access and give them state-of-the-art data connections. Then, they will have a true tool to compete at the speed of the connected global marketplace.
