There is a fascinating article in the technology section of the Boston Globe today. Philadelphia officials are considering turning the entire city into “the world’s largest wirelss internet hot spot”. Here are the mechanics. Hundreds of small tranmitters would be placed atop lamposts. These would have the capability of communicating with standard wireless network cards that are used in everyday laptops. The city is talking about offering internet access free of at a small fee to users. This would make high speed internet access virtually available to all. Philadelphia is not the first city to consider wireless. Chaska, Minn has been offering citywide wireless internet access for over a year. Philadelphia officials estiminate that the setup cost would be about
$10 million. This sounds like a small price for such a huge technological leap. I use wireless at home to connect to the internet. It is reliable and convenient. It probably won’t be long before many more cities follow the lead of Chaska and Philadelphia.
