An April's Fool. AKA When Verizon VPs Start Making Sense.

Walter White, Vice President of "State and Local Government" for Verizon Communications, just wrote a facinating article on municipal WiFi for Government Tech Magazine. Though the headline paints a rather blank-and-white picture of White's thesis, "Why Municipal Wi-Fi May Be a Bad Investment for Cities," White does make some interesting points along the way.

As a corporate spokesman, I found White's comments to be, at times self-contradictory and paradoxical -- he holds forth, "I often remark to the fact broadband has quickly become a 'critical infrastructure in the 21st Century.'" while, at the same time stating, "Muni Wi-Fi is at best a 'nice-to-have,' not a 'must-have.'" In the end, Verizon seems to believe that the democracy of local governing should be subsumed under corporate control. This might be exemplified by statements such as, "We decided not to participate in the city of Philadelphia's Wi-Fi endeavor, but we have given the city a waiver so it can embark on this project." The reality is, Verizon and others are quite comfortable with local governmental authority being trumped by a single corporation.

Grasping at straws, White holds that, because "almost all libraries offer free Web access" somehow there's no digital divide -- as if broadband provision in a few locations during the same hours most people are already working somehow solves the digital divide.

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But either way, White states categorically, "Verizon is not against muni Wi-Fi," which is quite an interesting change of events given previous statements and actions by the Verizon staff. Given the massive market failures of the US broadband service provision market, it's facinating that companies like Verizon are still claiming that governmental involvement in curbing continuing corporate excesses and underservicing are a bad idea. One need only look at many other industrialized nations to see that we're falling further and further behind the curve.