In August of 2007, Earthlink, failing to make muni-fi work as an incumbent end-around, gave Houston million for missing build deadlines. Earthlink ultimately walked away from citywide Wi-Fi entirely, but Houston used their money to deploy downtown Wi-Fi themselves. That network went live one year later, providing Houston residents with free service last August. Since inception the city’s website hinted the initiative might not last, and now the Houston Chronicle reports the project has been modified to the chagrin of some locals:

Those who had high hopes that Houston’s flirtations with WiFi would give them free home connectivity, that bubble appears to have officially burst. Instead, the city is using .5 million from a settlement with Earthlink to provide computers and free high-speed connectivity to community centers, nonprofit groups and schools.

With the exception of an area downtown with parking meter mounted hotspots, it looks like Houston is closing the network off to the general public. A project spokesperson says the post-Earthlink plan never involved Wi-Fi for the masses, and tells the Chronicle this effort is “about access with a purpose” and was never intended to be a Wi-Fi free for all. Glenn Fleishman of Wi-Fi Networking News seems utterly perplexed by the move:

I have no idea why anyone would think this is a good idea. Bringing Internet access to libraries, schools, and community centers is a perfectly marvelous idea, but in low-income neighborhoods, the notion of putting free or affordable Internet access in the home, paired with programs to offer inexpensive or free refurbished computers along with training, is to deal with the commensurate problem that kids can work from their homes instead of being out on the mean streets.

Houston’s logic doesn’t seem all that strange, given that restricting the municipal network to schools and community centers reduces network strain and bandwidth costs, while letting somebody else worry about wireless broadband across the rest of the city (which should make ISPs happy). The network was initially deployed to network parking meters and funded by Earthlink’s screw up, so the school and community center Wi-Fi is just an added perk.
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