Somerville may install free wireless in Davis

[ceo]

From the Somerville Journal:

[John] Connolly also wants wireless Internet service for all of Davis Square.
The Ward 6 alderman is asking City Information Technology Director James Halloran to see if wireless Internet service can be provided to all of Davis Square by installing "a few well-situated" antennae.
"Perhaps it's something we can achieve by this fall," Connolly said.
Coffee shops, including Starbucks and the Diesel Café, already offer wireless Internet service inside their businesses for a nominal charge.
Connolly said he'd like Halloran to meet with the Chamber of Commerce and the Davis Square Business Interest Group to see if the service could be extended to laptop computer users sitting in parks and benches in the square.
If the service works in Davis Square, Connolly said maybe it could be brought to other squares in the city, too.

Comments

hurray for jumping to conclusions

[kvarko.livejournal.com]

I saw nothing in the post that suggested that tax payers would fund this. (Nor anything to suggest they wouldn't, to be fair.)

It's possible that the idea is to have Davis Square businesses each put a small amount of money into it, so they all benefit without much cost to any one business. The post did say that Connolly is meeting with the "Davis Square Business Interest Group".

In San Diego, I stayed in a hotel in Little Italy and was pleasantly surprised to see that Little Italy was covered by free wireless, which I think was paid for by the businesses as a group. I was able to use the neighborhood wireless from my hotel room, as well as from local coffeeshops.