Great plans they were, the objective to give everyone in a city free wifi. The plan to provide citizens with free connection to the Internet via wi-fi blanket coverage of a city can be likened to a city providing its citizens with "free" water channeled to each house via a series of tubes (pipes).


However, these plans seem to be failing for some reason. Chicago is curtailing its plan to blanket cover the city after failing to reach agreement with either of the two companies proposing wifi coverage for the city. And a few days later the same wifi coverage dreams were cancelled in San Francisco when provider EarthLink backed out of a proposed contract with the city.

It seems that the model of providing free wifi citywide with support from city administrators is coming into question not only in San Francisco and Chicago. Similar plans are going pear shaped in Huston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Anaheim and Milpitas.

Wifi services in other countries also seems to be facing snags. In Australia, Telstra, the major phone carrier, has built wifi hotspots throughout the two most populous cities in Australia, Sydney and Melbourne. These wifi hotspots are far from free. There is a charge of $5 for about 30 minutes of use. But even though Telstra has hundreds of hotspots in these two cities, Telstra is de-emphasizing wifi use instead encouraging people to use the NextG network into which it has sunk AU$1 billion.

There is this ominous cloud over most every free wifi service. It seems that wifi hotspots are in need of a different economic model. For example, In UK and Europe wifi hotspots are on offer in pubs, hotels, and similar sites. Wifi is free while a customer of these hospitality sites. Some pubs provide a free wifi hotspot upon a purchase; others provide a free hotspot for 30 minutes.

It seems to be that the free hotspot model in coffee shops (like Starbucks) and hotels is going to be the model that works best.