An article at Demos on some of the issues of municipal wireless:

Fast, reliable access to the internet -- broadband -- has quickly become an indispensable asset in American life. To the businesses and families who rely on it, the internet's basically priceless, offering security and opportunity as well as any financial asset. But since its inception in America, the internet has also been in the unique position of being a utility--a community asset--delivered exclusively by private businesses. So what happens when what's good for the community isn't good for the businesses' bottom lines? In the rural Midwest, hundreds of thousands of citizens get left without on-ramps to the Information Superhighway.

In last month's Washington Post, Verizon spokesperson Harry Mitchell was direct about why the company doesn't bring broadband to citizens in remote areas: "You've got to have a business model where you have a chance of making some money." This coming, incidentally, from a company with $68 billion in revenue in 2003.

Meanwhile, according to the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, fewer than 10 percent of homes in rural America have broadband access. If you think that's not critical, tell that to the sixty Chrysler repair shop workers of Scottsburg, Indiana who were told in 2002 that they'd lose their jobs if they didn't get first-class internet hookups for their on-the-job laptops. Sixty solidly middle-class jobs in a population of 6,000 is no small matter--and that's why mayor Bill Graham stepped in where Verizon wouldn't. A quick analysis determined that the whole county could be blanketed in wireless internet by piggybacking on existing public power and water towers at a cost of only $385,000. The network was completed in less than four months. The city now charges its citizens and businesses $35 a month for regular access and $200 for a high-capacity T1 line (as opposed to the prohibitive $1300 a month it used to cost.)

...via Smart Mobs