This column originally appeared in Business & Finance magazine on 16 May 2007.

RICHARD DELEVAN
Last January the techno-vangelists of Ireland got a bit giddy when Dublin City Council confirmed it was looking into offering public access to wireless broadband across the city using WiFi, a technology that increasingly comes as a standard add-on in laptops, mobile phones, even handheld video game devices. But within weeks Ireland’s capital city was trumped by Carlow town, which launched its own service covering a portion of the town, in conjunction with e-net.
Then in late April, while Dublin had yet to get beyond the stage of debating what questions it would ask consultants to ask potential providers about a potential tender for a potential service - with an expected delivery date for a Dublin City WiFi network a few years after the Chinese land a man on the Moon - the City of London went ahead and announced to the world that a public WiFi network covering the Square Mile financial centre had opened its for business. It was good PR for London, which has of late been engaged in a campaign to persuade people that it trumps all other European cities as a place to make deals and do business.
Certainly there is a case to be made that having ubiquitous wireless broadband is going to be a competitive advantage for cities. Not surprisingly, the case is made most forcefully by vendors selling the equipment that backs it all up. Motorola, one of the leaders in this area, makes the point in a recent white paper:
“In an increasingly competitive knowledge-based global economy a city’s communications infrastructure is as vital as roads, water and other public utilities. Without it its citizens can not participate in, and exploit, the digital economy.”
“In competing for inward economic investment, broadband is essential to attract new business, to equip a skilled workforce and support the local economy. It supports peoples’ changing working patterns; people working as part for larger extended teams, flexible working and nomadic working. Allowing users to access data whenever and wherever they want empowers a better work-life balance.”
“Broadband needs to be available everywhere, at any time and to all citizens.”
Like most visions of a bright, sunny future brought about by technology, this one does have some doubters, as debates about public WiFi projects have played out in American cities that have gone further down the track, like Philadelphia and San Francisco.
In San Francisco, the WiFi network has been “donated” by Google, which in certain areas of the city is offering ‘free’ access, though surfers will be required to have some advertising sold by Google on their screens while they are on the network. The city of Philadelphia has gone down a different path, setting up a pilot project in conjunction with internet provider Earthlink. But rather than use it as a PR prop for inward investment, the city government sees it as essential for social inclusion.
An increasing number of companies will only accept job applications online, for example, which starts to make the “digital divide” a term that starts to become a concern of more than just policy wonks. If internet access is increasingly necessary for citizens to have a chance for employment, as well as social services, the argument that it is an essential like water and electricity starts to gather more force.
But the question of the right model hasn’t been found just yet. Critics argue that Philadelphia was wrong for partnering up on this “digital inclusion” project with a for-profit company like Earthlink. Though it is hard to imagine a city that will be able to set up such a network On the other side of the argument, some business groups question whether government should get into this business at all. In fact, when Dublin City Council announced its intent back in January, the telecommunications group of Ibec condemned the move, arguing that a public network would take jobs away from private sector providers and perhaps degrade the quality of the service, because of several overlapping networks interfering with each other. While the first objection is laughable, the second will be thrashed out over time as users experience the service in areas like the City of London.
Earlier this month, in fact, I had a chance to try out the service while at a conference just off of Finsbury Square, inside the area covered by the Square Mile. The first thing you discover, of course, is that WiFi isn’t designed to go through walls. Which means that if you are inside a coffee shop using your laptop, the signal - coming from “furniture” like street lamps - will be weak and variable. Which hardly makes it a reliable way to do much of anything, as most of us aren’t going to be toting around weatherproof laptops. And certainly wouldn’t, by itself, convince a lot of executives of the superiority of London.
While there is, to be sure, a lot of potential here, Dublin City Council may not be wrong to take it slowly before making a decision.

Richard Delevan is the business editor of the Sunday Tribune. rdelevan@tribune.ie