This article talks about Nutter’s unwillingness to continue the project; apparently it fuels 80% of wireless in the city? Surprising, but an even more important reason not to let the project be dismantled. Nutter said he doesn’t want to use taxpayer money to fund the project anymore, which I suppose is reasonable, but the project shouldn’t be dismantled! There was mention of a help from a nonprofit organization:
The discussions have also involved a nonprofit given $25 million to help address the digital divide. Scot Rourke, CEO of One Community, said Tuesday that all of the parties working to take the network back from Earthlink aren’t “aligned.”
One Community (.org) is a nonprofit that connects companies/non-profits/schools(?) in NE Ohio, and has plans to connect people in over 22 countries, which sounds kind of ambitious. I guess they’re like the Internet version of the XO Project, which gives laptops to children in Africa and third-world countries.
It would be spectacular if a non-profit came in to help the whole Wi-Fi Philly project out, but I still think it’s fundamentally flawed.
