Thursday, August 02, 2007

Metrofi Portland Blues

There was a time long ago when Portland was named one of the "best" unwired cities in the nation, this was before the city government got interested in doing its own wireless thing in the city. Up till then it was all about the work done by individual shop and home owners putting up APs and the work of the Personal Telco Project in helping out , educating folks and generally putting up nodes where ever they were allowed.

But then the city decided to get involved and they called in the company known as Metrofi to come in, get all sorts of prime pole placement and antenna perches in order to set up a for pay service, with the promise there would be a bit of free usage given to the populace. What wound up being doled out was ad injected sponsored log in required access that did not even meet the benchmarks set out for usability

So where does this leave the populace of the city? Lots of opportunity with very little coordination. Metrofi's coverage is spotty and lackluster at best, the Personal Telco Project's coverage not as vast but a bit more usable and others are still popping up new hotspots allover the town. What is missing from MetroFi's offering is a sense of community that the Personal Telco Project seems willing to take on. What sort of things?

How do you use the freely open(as opposed to accidentally opened) networks around you?

How do you leverage them to get things done on a personal and community level?

How to get more people connected to these resources who would not otherwise have access to such things?

What are Best Practices when using such networks?

There has been a call to gather interested parties and teach just these issues to those citizens who are interested in learning.

In the long run I think its going to be important for Portland to keep what is best about its wireless efforts in focus, that is being community driven with a strong effort to educate and experiment for the betterment of the community it serves. Else wise Portland becomes just another For Pay profit pool with not payoff for the community.

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