Was reading Time the other day, came across this tidbit:

"Communities are nonetheless welcoming wireless- public or private- because building a wi-fi network is a steal compared with laying cable, which can cost 1- times as much. Over the next three years, US towns will pony up nearly $700 Million to build municipal networks, predicts MuniWireless.com As a public utility, wi-fi has undeniable benefits. City workers can use low-cost VOIP (voice-over Internet protocol), and police and firefighters have high-speed bandwidth for on-the-go access to data like criminal records and building plans or live shots from security cameras.

Low-cost or no-cost wi-fi is a potent competitive thread to cable companies and telcos, which spent billions building out systems. Thats why these industries mounted a furious lobbying attack, push through restrictive legislation in 14 states including Pennsylvania and Louisiana, to stop towns from constructing their own networks and charging a fee.

What are your thoughts, both on the fact that companies are lobbying against this (not surprising) and on the fact that wi-fi is cheaper and might become widely available in cities?

I know that there's a huge WiFi project going on in Philadelphia by Earthlink. Also, I think there's one in San Diego, too. I don't feel that bad for the cable companies; they should have been able to forsee that their equipment might become obsolete. I think that if the government starts selling internet access, though, it should be cheap/free, but low-quality (kind of like the internet connections at public libraries). That way people could all use the internet for free/cheap, but people who wanted speed access would have to pay a cable company for nice access. The ideal case would be the cable companies getting into the WiFi business, but for some reason I don't see this happening. I think it's good that there might be free portable internet, but the government need not go providing the best service and competing with companies. Plus the added privacy concerns, the government being able to screw with my internet connection if it's public WiFi...