Democracy & Technology Blog Philly update
Philadelphia’s city-run Wi-Fi project seems to be in trouble before it begins. Mike Langberg of the San Jose Mercury News says the city is realizing initial cost projections were way too low and expections were way too high. I said a year ago the $10 million cost figure was “implausible” and that the number of required network nodes would explode from the original projection of 1,000. PFF also questioned Philly’s plan and recaps the story here.
I may have been wrong, however, to suggest last year that Philly’s project wouldn’t fail: “I doubt any municipal wireless project has failed, or ever will,” I wrote. “Have you ever heard of a government program that failed? This is the fundamental failure of non-market activities: the inability to fail. Because you have unlimited inputs and unmeasurable outputs, and because cost and value are unknown and profits and losses are not internalized, there is no feedback, there is no learning curve, there is no signal to stop.”
Anyway, maybe I was too pessimistic, and maybe Philly pols have come to their senses. But don’t count on it.
-Bret Swanson