(2003-11-24) Municipal Network Ownership

Arnold Kling disses Larry Lessig's approval of city-owned network (Municipal Net) services. I don't get into that much of a lather over city-level works projects (except when the city is the size of NYC), but I tend to agree with Arnold. My guess is that what we will learn is that companies with good political connections will get the contracts to build these AFN-s. They'll be like baseball stadiums (Sports Stadium)--a great way for private interests to suck up taxpayer money and claim that it's for civic benefit... Finally, the solution to the Last Mile problem isn't civic works projects. It's civil disobedience. Wireless (WiFi) networks using the spectrum now allocated to BroadCast television (Analog Tv Spectrum) would be an elegant solution.