From my SO (sent into The Columbian)

In an opinion piece in the Columbian, Friday, February 04, 2005, Steve Titch addresses publicly-funded WiFi access being tested and implemented in some parts of the country. Mr. Titch claims that public investment in access to information is "questionable."

In his article, Mr. Titch comes across as a true advocate for an unsuspecting public, only concerned for the fiscal well-being of the citizens of Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. Those are some of the places where the politicians are attempting to provide wide-area, low-cost access to information. Vancouver, Washington is another.

Mr. Titch's plaintive cries might ring more truthfully if he was not a mouthpiece for the New Millennium Research Council (NMRC). One step further up the ladder, NMRC is sponsored by an organization called Issue Dynamics, Inc. and to complete the picture, Issue Dynamics is funded by most of the major telecommunications companies in the US. Mr. Titch’s commentary is nothing more than a paid advertisement and should be cited as such.

As I am sure Mr. Titch knows, but does not address, issues such as these are not single-faceted. If publicly-funded or regulated systems such as WiFi are not implemented, the lack of them will incur other costs. If they are implemented by uncontrolled, private enterprise, there will be other costs.

In one of the cases Mr. Titch cited, Philadelphia, Verizon estimated that their profit from the proposed commercial implementation of the plan developed by the municipality would be around $250 million dollars. According to Mr. Titch, the City of Philadelphia should abandon its plan to implement a system at a cost of $10 to 15 million dollars and turn it over to Verizon - the company that estimated a profit of $250 million for implementing the same system.

Mr. Titch is not representing the best interest of the public, but is a shill for the telecommunications industry and his opinions should be weighed accordingly.