Poll: Should every city and airport have free wifi?

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Open wifi

Opensource.com

Whether you travel often or just occasionally, paying for wireless is something many of us face. Whether it's at airports or hotels, many people opt to use a free network first.

Some cities and airports are starting to provide free wireless to the public. Is this a new trend? Are the days of paying for wireless access coming to an end?

Let us know what you think.

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Jason Hibbets is a Community Director at Red Hat with the Digital Communities team. He works with the Enable Architect, Enable Sysadmin, Enterprisers Project, and Opensource.com community publications.

4 Comments

I'm stunned at the percentage voting with the elitist opinion that every airport but NOT city should have free wifi. Ubiquitous access as a basic piece of infrastructure is increasingly critical to mere survival. For example, try looking for a job without the Internet or an email address. On a macro level, it's critical to staying globally competitive. Having it for free in an airport is merely a luxury.

Its a matter of convenience to have Wi-fi in public location. However, Internet access certainly isn't a right and someone will have to pay to provide access. Let the people in charge make the decision most suitable to their location. No mandates!

In my city, there are 2 shopping centers and 1 park with free wifi. But the signal quality is horrible!

This poll question is pretty lame. It's not balanced at all. The question is only between airport only acess and blanket city access. It should be better refined than just that.
Anyway, in the small city that I live in most restaurants/coffee shop, the library, hotels all have free wifi. That's how I think it should be. Public places that people frequent should be the only places necessary to have free wifi offered. If people want to blanket an entire city with it then there should be no complaints about tax rates rising.

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