Now available online: “A postmortem look at city-wide wi-fi”, a short version of “The Failure of Public WiFi” (2009)…
“Large and small cities all over the country partnered with major companies. … But municipalities could not build the networks as promised, and users had little reason to come to the limited networks that they delivered. … users often have WiFi access in homes, at work, at coffee shops, in hotels and airports …. For users who require wireless access outside those areas, private cellular [mobile phone] companies offer high-speed 3G wireless data networks using technologies better suited for widespread coverage”
It’s not all bad news. It seems that village-scale / small-town rural deployments have seen success in public deployment…
“many small, rural municipalities have found success deploying public WiFi”.
