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Philadelphia Network Flop Points To Failure Of Corporate Franchise Model

Ron Tang — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:21:00 -0400

Last year, New America Foundation released an in-depth report and analysis of the Wireless Philadelphia Project, “The Philadelphia Story: Learning from a Municipal Wireless Pioneer.” We concluded that the private franchise model was suboptimal and that Philadelphia’s solution was problematic in a number of ways. At the time, we received good press coverage and a helluvalot of blowback from certain constituencies (who continued to assert that everything was on track).

Now that we’ve made it to May, 2008, Wireless Philadelphia is on its last legs. While many of us are still working to salvage something from this mess, reading through… more

Which is More Important for Spectrum Policy: FCC or DOT?

Articles — Sun, 08 Jan 2006 04:00:00 -0500

Which has more influence on spectrum policy: the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) or the various federal, state, and local departments of transportation? Conventional wisdom would place the FCC as the hands down winner. Surely, that continues to be the case. But if current technological trends continue, the departments of transportation, especially the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), could end up a strong second. We're all familiar with the growing importance of municipal Wi-Fi. But why not highway Wi-Fi? Why should Wi-Fi stop at city boundaries?

That's where the USDOT's planned Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) could come… more