approximately three years ago there was a plan made to provide the entire city of riverside with free wireless Internet access by placing access points all over. In and article of the Press Enterprise "Riverside goal of all-over Web access falls short so far," Alicia Robinson details how the plan is doing and what problems have surged so far.
Robinson tells us that the current "WiFi" coverage is about 70% of the city in the three years they have been working on it and to have the full coverage the city would need $5.1 million in stimulus money.
A few other issues that arise are that the wireless coverage that is currently provided by AT&T has a contract until the year 2011 so it is unsure of what will happen to the plan after that. Also the Internet service is not as good as it would have been to have individual wireless access points at home. Although Robinson gives us a clear story, i would have liked to read interviews about the subject from people in favor or against it.
It is a good idea because people that don't have Internet access because it is expensive would benefit from the plan but I think that they should not use more of the stimulus money for a service that is not really good and unreliable because of weather conditions and trees blocking signals.
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