Who do you think should pay for free wifi?

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Open wifi
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Opensource.com

In a previous poll, we asked if you thought every major city or airport should have free wifi.

The results are mixed, but in favor of some

coverage with free wifi. That means now we're interested in who you think should pay for free wifi.

126 votes tallied
Local municipalities
28% (35 votes)
Federal governments
21% (26 votes)
Corporate sponsors
25% (31 votes)
Individual users
23% (29 votes)
Someone else (explain in comments)
4% (5 votes)

Results

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Comments

4 Comments

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Jacques | September 29, 2011
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Local business in the range where the wifi is available could fund the
wifi with advertising. When opening a browser for the first time it
redirects to a page with advertisements from local businesses. These
ads will be very well targeted (geographically) and the cost of the
wifi would be much cheaper than other types of advertisement,
television ads for example.

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Kevin | October 5, 2011
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If a local business offers free wifi at their establishment, then it should be that business that pays for it through the increase patronage generated by the incentive of free wifi. If a library offers free wifi then it depends on where the funding for the library comes from. Some libraries are publically funded and others are privately held or another non-profit entity. The dumb part of this question is if individual users pay for the wifi access then it's not free then is it?

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Giulio Fidente | October 24, 2011
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I would pay the individual users. That would give people more control and choice leaving to them a chance to choose how to get "connected".

Give a look at <a href="http://www.fon.com">FON</a>

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Jason Hibbets | October 25, 2011
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Andy over at <a href="http://govloop.com">GovLoop</a> pointed out that some of the results from the above poll and our poll on having <a href="https://opensource.com/life/11/9/poll-should-every-city-airport-have-free-wifi">free wifi in every major city or airport</a>, have made it into a more detailed article:

<a href="http://gov.aol.com/2011/10/20/what-if-government-gave-everyone-free-wi-fi/">What If Government Gave Everyone Free Wi-Fi?</a>

It's a very interesting read.
Jason