57 Cities Now Have Free #Wi-Fi, But They're Not Thinking Big Enough

In August, Los Angeles, began research on a program that would make it the largest city in the country to blanket the city in free Wi-Fi. Currently, over 57 U.S. cities are providing “muni Wi-Fi” on some level. These cities hope “muni-Wi-Fi” will provide job opportunities to their underserved populations, facilitate waves of innovation, and brand the city as tech-friendly.But a single-minded focus on municipal Wi-Fi is misplaced. To maximize investments in digital infrastructure, local governments should look beyond cosmetic solutions such as municipal Wi-Fi, install a fiber-optic network, and implement a public-private model to finance the construction.The actual benefits of municipal Wi-Fi are limited. First, a large majority of Americans already have access to the internet, creating a dynamic in which municipal Wi-Fi will only marginally expand the use of the internet. Right now, 85% of Americans over the age of 18 have access to the internet and 70% of adults have high-speed internet in their homes. Of the portion of the population that does not have internet in their home, nearly half claim that they simply don’t want or need it. Thus, for the vast majority of the population, municipal Wi-Fi plans will only provide a supplement to household connections, possibly explaining why established municipal Wi-Fi programs have generally targeted 10-25% of the population, but have only achieved a 1-2% signup rate.Furthermore, Wi-Fi services offered by municipalities tend to be inferior to what’s already on the market. The average broadband download speed in the United States is 8.6 Mbps (megabits per second) and the average smartphone download speed can range from 1-5 Mbps for 3G services and 5-17 Mbps for LTE services. In contrast, although exceptions exist (see San Jose, Calif.), municipal internet speeds are typically only 1 Mbps. For example, city-provided Wi-Fi in Raleigh, N.C., Santa Clara, Calif., Albany, N.Y., and El Paso, Texas all provide speeds around 1 Mbps. By comparison, your local Starbucks used to offer speeds of 1.5 Mbps, before it partnered with Google last month to provide speeds of up to 15 Mbps.

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