WI-FI BOONDOGGLE WATCH

Many of us in River City are vaguely aware of the City Commission's bold initiative to transform us into one of Guv Jen's Cool Cities by making wireless internet access available thoughout the city.  In the parlance of the geeks, Grand Rapids would become one big "hotspot" where anyone with a "wi-fi" card in his or her p.c. can make a high-speed connection to the web without plugging into anything.  You would have internet mobility with your laptop kinda like you do for telephone service with your cellphone.

It appears that some progress has been made toward this publicly sponsored wireless wonderland.  Several wi-fi service providers have installed demonstration projects throughout the city to allow residents to sample their services in a bid to win a contract from the Grand Rapids City Commission for the entire city.  There are eight demos in the works within the City, one in Walker, and another in Kentwood.  Some are up and running right now, including those at Calder Plaza, GRPD headquarters, and Creston High School.  The rest of the demos are slated to up and running within the next few days.  The prevailing company will get monopoly to build and operate a hotspot over the city, kinda like what Comcast has over the city's cable t.v. infrastructure.

Yes, that's right, folks.  Just like you must subscribe to the one and only cable company in town to get its cable t.v., you'll have to subscribe to whomever the City Commission chooses to get access to the city's wi-fi service.  Expect to pay four or five bucks a day for immediate one-time access, or twenty dollars or more a month for a regular subscription.  If the publicly sponsored wi-fi service in Grand Haven is anything to go by, those uncompetitive prices may not give you either a reliable or a fast connection.

Mayor Heartwell wanted to avoid the mistakes the City of Grand Haven made in picking a vendor to operate its hotspot by paying a consultant $100,000 to make that decision.  Commissioner Tormala had the sense at least to object to the City Commission paying someone a king's ransom to do what the City Commission was elected to do.  So the City Commission two weeks ago mandated that the agreements with the contending wi-fi service providers must be re-written so that whichever provider wins the contract must reimburse the City for the $100,000 consultant's fee.  And who do you think, dear readers, will be reimbursing the winning provider for that $100,000 cost?  Like always, you and me, the customers.

Well, that assumes we will be customers.  One must wonder how necessary a citywide hotspot accessible only through a monopoly wi-fi service provider really is?  With McDonald's, coffee shops, and other commercial gathering places offering the same service for free, and also with the technology available to make any office building, factory, or home a mini-hotspot in its own right, do we need the government sponsoring the same service with, more than likely, less service?  After all, what's the big benefit of the citywide system?  You can get your laptop to talk to the internet outside in the cold and the snow?  (Yes, I know we also have nice sunny days too, but then aren't those the days to be doing something better than banging the keyboard of a computer?)

How confident can we be that this won't be a boondoggle, when the City Commission is so lacking in the ability to make the key decision about this new wi-fi system that it must spend a $100,000 to be told what to do?  Indeed, no one in the City has even drafted a firm plan for how such a publicly sponsored wi-fi system is supposed to work for the benefit of residents.

I am not predicting disaster here.  I'm simply pointing out that this venture doesn't seem to be on the surest footing.  It bears keeping an eye on it.