What is Digg?62 Comments
- LoadStar, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Not to knock the submitter - but to BusinessWeek, was there any point at all in making this a picture slideshow? The pictures are just stock photos, and add absolutely nothing to what is barely a story. Sorry, had to mark this as Lame.
- Himself, on 10/12/2007, -6/+18I cannot wait to be taxed even more!
- factoryjoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8The future of wifi belongs to the citizens. http://munified.com.
If only people got together to setup citizen wireless networks, we could act the part of Big Sister on the NSA.
The longer we sit back and let the private companies and government build these networks out and around us, the less room/incentive there is for citizen wifi. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9In one sense they should be estatic: If the city govts keep records, the NSA will have a field day!
- strangerzero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I wouldn't mind paying for something as useful as citywide Wi-Fi, just like I don't mind paying taxes for roads, schools, 911, Police, fire departments, etc,
- triplehelix, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9the ISP's will be doing everything to block municipal broadband:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Verizon_Tries_To_Block_Michigan_Municipal_Fiber_Optic_Project - flamingmb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7yay portland. And it will cost us nothing to biuld it, no higher taxes or anything.
- BigBoogie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6They missed Toronto
- PackRat24, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Would just cut out the middle man, really...
- endernet, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Our free city wide wifi is being provided by an outside vendor and the city expects to generate $18K/yr in revenue from it; The vendor will be leasing our light poles.
- veruus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I detect sarcasm...
- tastycheese, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5there were ads on that page?
I can't believe people still surf without adblock. welcome to 2002! - molecool, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3When are you guys going to learn that those 'slide shoe' or 'top ten' pages only serve to expose you to tons of banner ads? Take this article for instance - every city has a pretty picture and of course is a complete page reload with a brand new ad banner. GREAT for selling advertising - bad for absorbing information on the parts of the reader. What ever happened to old fashioned scroll-down? This is BS and when I see pages like that I immediately exit.
- daprice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2My city has municipal broadband supplied by Red Moon Broadband. The pricing is $16.95/month with no other hidden charges. It was the first full city wifi installation in Texas, and it was delayed because the telecom companies were lobbying the Texas government to outlaw cities from offering competing internet service. But in the end, the telecom companies weren't able to stop it.
- tomwsmf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Portland has had free, really free, wifi for about 6 years now. It has grown from a few spots to over 100. Most of these are thanks to the Personal Telco Project, an all volunteer force that works with local home owners and biz folks to set up wifi nodes and to educate folks on how to best use them. All of these nodes are free to use ..period.
On top of that , because of what the PTP has done, many shops and homes offer bits of their wifi for community use. Portland is awash with wifi offered up by the community for the betterment of all.
We will see if Metrofi will be a good neighbor or if they will shout out the PTPs and other existing nodes signal.
Please head over to www.personaltelco.net for more information or to join us and help grow the coverage. - cheez, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4chicago in da house
- mac2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2He's correct, we got an outside company to do it. The cost to the consumer is looking at ads. Private/Public partnership for better or worse.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3No LA? WTF? This sucks!
- boozedrinker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I don't think the guy in that first picture with that old-as-hell IBM Thinkpad is getting on any type of wi-fi ANYWHERE!
- 5blocksfree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've mixed feelings over this. On one hand, anything that competes with the likes of obscenely priced cable, is a good thing. On the other hand, this gives the government *direct* access to whatever is coming to, or being sent from, your computer. Obviously, it has been shown that corrupt government officials can tap in whenever they feel like it, but when that happens, at least there are ground to start asking questions. When you're using a government-controlled pipe, I'm not sure there is any recourse.
- MrStylz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Aside from Philly, this is now illegal to do in PA. The bill passed after the plans were drawn, so the city was excluded. No taxes for WiFi there I guess...but chalk one up for the Verizon lobbyists.
- TimDigg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3you don't need a large city or a rich community...you just need leadership in the government that believes in this...
- jeffness, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3this is a really bad list. There are 2 very large county governments in michigan that are putting together even larger WI-FI projects than these cities, but they were left off.
this article is nothing but fluff written by someone whos not-in-the-know. just seems he randomly picked 10 cities and looked into if theyre planning on putting WIFI out for the citizens.
Washtenaw County and Oakland County... - seibz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1its kind of funny that Verizon is fighting it in some cities since they are sponsoring it in others. take a look at http://www.buffalowifi.org/ its the free wifi connection in buffalo, NY. Its not in all areas but it works pretty good for the streets that its on.
- smcavoy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2LAME. a slide show with pics that are pretty and are no way related to the text.
Not to mention their stats change per city so there's no real way to compare them all..
silly fluff pretty much - mc7winkie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I was shocked to see Corpus Christi on the list. I don't really see it as a huge city in the comparison of Boston or Houston. Also it seem like Texs takes the winfor having the most Muni-Wi-Fis. Texas FTW!!
- Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Coffee stores got da nod. Why not muni? mumble mumble shuffle shuffle weak shuffle sister mumble govt shuffle shuffle
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3You bring up a good point on whether or not internet access is a basic need that should be supplied by the government.
However, I'm afraid that once internet access is bought by cities in large amounts and less people pay $50 a month for their line which they don't utilize, ISPs will simply be forced to increase the prices (the only reason dsl is so cheap currently is because most lines aren't utilized constantly, with city lines, they will be in constant use) therefore eliminating any gain by cutting away everybody's ISP bill. It would however eliminate the need for home routers for many people. - audiothink, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's a slideshow. In short:
Philadelphia: 135 sq mi ($10-$20/mo fast, free slow in public areas)
San Francisco: 1,500 hotspots ( - listrophy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2/me posts from his $15/month wifi connection in Madison, WI. Oh yeah, and I have a roommate to split the cost. At least the city isn't footing the whole bill.
Curse you Charter. I'm sticking it to the man. Ironically, I'm buying wifi from the man to do this. - Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1So ... please DIGG the better list?
- audiothink, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's a slideshow. In short:
Philadelphia: 135 sq mi ($10-$20/mo fast, free slow in public areas)
San Francisco: 1,500 hotspots ($20/mo fast, ad-supported slow)
Houston: 600 sq mi ($10-$20/mo, cheaper/free at some sites)
St. Cloud, FL: 24sq mi (100% free)
Corpus Christi, TX: 147sq mi ($20/mo)
Chicago: 228 sq mi (TBD, "lower than for incumbent broadband providers")
Tempe, AZ & neighborhood: 187sq mi ($30/mo, week/day/hr plans, free in 2mi downtown ASU campus)
Atlanta: 132 sq mi (TBD, discounts for residents)
Portland: 134 sq mi ($20/mo, ad-supported free)
Boston: 48 sq mi (TBD) - MrStylz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Problem in NYC, as with other cities just moreso there, is the vertical problem. Residential buildings are too tall to have an effect above the first few floors.
- Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Unless the cavalry comes over those rolling hills.
- Twango, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Is there any reason that citizen Wi-Fi can't be a completely different network? Or ten?
- cutechimp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1And the ad is the same on every page.
- n3r0, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2sweet, one day wi-fi coverage will be like cell phone coverage...wait...well...hopefully not so crappy. what's up with "foo" at the bottom of the page?
- anonydigg, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4@tastycheese
ads support the net. i intentionally don't use ad blockers. im sure there are people like me. - porkstacker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+050 miles south of San Francisco will take you to Sunnyvale, CA, which has had 100% free wireless internet access for about a year now... sucks since I recently moved to San Jose from Sunnyvale and have PacBell/SBC/AT&T/companyoftheweek DSL. :( But Mountain View rent and housing is cheaper than Sunnyvale.
- porkstacker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That's what one gets when they rely on stock photography CDROMs for their source images. Technicalities like that crack me up. Reminds me of a wall-sized full-colour promotional poster they have on the wall at my credit union, which depicts a woman "doing her online banking" with her 1997 Beige G3 Powermac... funny, the credit union supposedly does not offer Mac users online banking!!! WTF??
- Zarubi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1No mention of Mountain View, CA? We already almost full coverage of the entire city with totally free WiFi thanks to Google, though we do only have a population of about 75000.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The guy in the background of the Atlanta picture (9/11) looks like he's giving some random person off camera the finger. Digg for that! but undigg for the stupid slideshow format.
- bigfkncee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1new york city needs this
- Clemenceau, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Hm... don't see it, wait, maybe... nope, Willow Springs, Missouri is not on the list. *sigh*. Maybe it was number 11.
- A2Ska, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Can't wait for wireless Washtenaw.
- db50, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Chicago........Price to be determined........What happened to FREE..!!
- IndianaJ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Try googling 'Fred e-zone' to find out about Fredericton, New Brunswick Canada's FREE wireless network!! You should also know that in September, 2005 - 'Cisco Systems Considered Fredericton Smartest City in North America'
- porkstacker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Exactly. The stock photos don't add anything to the story. It could easily have just been a text-based story. But in this day and age of ADHD-inducing television newscasts (CNN, etc.) where you have twelve different things going on onscreen simultaneously, it is no wonder that Businessweek's staff inadvertently became caught up in obfuscating their message.
- TimDigg, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Michigan eh?
are you sure that isn't google sponsored?
or at least Larry Page sponsored?
Google's next big facility is in Michigan - emhansen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Wow missed milwaukee, wi
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4196/is_20060701/ai_n16514892
oh well -
Show 51 - 62 of 62 discussions
Check out the new & improved 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is