There is nothing more boring than reading an author's constant, "I told you so" but at the risk of putting myself in that undesirable category, consider this.  The US fashion, indeed, stampede to MuniWireless is eye-catching.  Esme Vos and her rich website - with its newly minimised design (I like it, Esme!) - catalogues just how pervasive this fashion is.  And not just in the US - according to MuniWireless, Dublin and Bombay are climbing on the MuniWireless bandwagon.  (.. and for those of you tutt-tutting at my use of the name 'Bombay' rather than the politically correct "Mumbai", I take my lead from my Bombay friends - all of whom state that the locals call it like it is and are disdainful of the revised Mumbai name tag).

But back to the US and my longterm claim that WiFi is no longterm dietry substitute for HiFi - 'high fibre'.  That is to say, a city-wide WiFi network is surely a service or application that any community will find valuable - providing local connectivity on a truly mobile basis, coupled with internet access - but unless this sits on top of a future-proof fibre OPLAN, the city will soon discover it has been short changed.  So my celebration and congratulation of cities like Philadelphia, has always been tempered with a caution that unless this WiFi initiative is 'step one' of a well thought out, longterm strategy towards securing an underpinning fibre OPLAN, then at some point in the future, the City will find its connectivity is severely compromised.

So now the news.  I am led to understand that early in February, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors will vote on whether or not to approve the city’s deal with Google/Earthlink for providing the area with free wireless internet access.  As the date gets closer, suggestions for alternatives to the project are beginning to emerge.  Last year, The Fog City Journal reported that there was a real debate on WiFi/HiFi beginning to develop.  And last week, Public Net San Francisco, a coalition of various community groups and Internet professionals, insisted that the City of San Francisco cancel the pending Google/Earthlink monopoly WiFi deal, and instead use the City’s existing high speed fiber optic network as the backbone to build a truly modern, fast, and free, public communications system - an OPLAN.  Groups releasing the statement included the San Francisco People’s Organization (SFPO), Our City, the community wireless network SFLan, and Internet services provider United Layer, so this is far from an isolated concern.  Their statement follows closely on the heels of a report just released by the San Francisco Budget Analyst’s Office, which makes clear that the Google/Earthlink deal will result in an inferior monopoly franchise that will give San Franciscans much slower access than nearly all other cities providing municipal Internet, and more importantly, will fail to serve the intended core goal of the project – to make certain that all San Franciscans, regardless of their income, get free fast and equal access to the Internet.  And that's before they awaken to the potential longterm benefits of a true OPLAN in terms of local peer-to-peer connectivity.  Read a local's take on this issue in Edie Codel's 'jibber jabber' blog.

There's more too in The Examiner.  It points up the US proclivity for instant satisfaction in reporting that what most affects consumers in the Bay area about an OPLAN alternative is the concern that it would be slower than other options. The Examiner reports that, "... although a fibre-based OPLAN approach might be a better bet for San Francisco, such a project, which would cost approximately $560 million, has never been done in a city of San Francisco’s size within the U.S. but has been successful in some European cities.   Although speed may be faster, one drawback is that connecting a full fiber network of this size could take up to fifteen years, whereas Earthlink’s citywide WiFi should be available in 2009".

Well, would you believe it!  The US lagging behind Europe?  Surely not!  But then they always were better at sprinting and the Europeans at long distance and marathon running... on a rich fibre diet, of course!