City pays for more wireless than it can use

Bokeh

Unused Wi-Fi costs Minneapolis millions | StarTribune.com

SteveLord

Cell phone providers mandating dataplans with purchase of their smartphones helped kill it I bet. I know many people years ago were sticking their nose in the air against data plans proclaiming "Hmmmph! Wifi is everywhere! I don't need to pay $30/mo! Haha!."

CodeBlox

Gosh thats comparable to how the cellphone companies lock you into a contract for a good long while. I don't make many calls and have a cell phone. At one time, I was on a plan where the minutes which I don't use "roll over" to the next month. It eventually started adding up. I think I had 500 dollars worth of credit with the cellular provider, all of it gone now because I chose to go elsewhere. In this case, I guess they should've done more planning.

powerfool

I am waiting for the family/shared data plans to come out, which has been predicted will happen this year. I have three data plans on my plan, plus I get my home broadband from the same company... and they want to place caps on me?!? That is crazy. They need to ease up somewhere, or I am going to go somewhere else.

tpatt100

powerfool wrote: »

I am waiting for the family/shared data plans to come out, which has been predicted will happen this year. I have three data plans on my plan, plus I get my home broadband from the same company... and they want to place caps on me?!? That is crazy. They need to ease up somewhere, or I am going to go somewhere else.

I think they think the majority of people won't go anywhere due to contracts and subsidized price of smart phones. The consolidating of mobile phone carriers is making "shopping around" more difficult to do, plus customers need to start thinking of paying full price for their phones.

chrisone

SteveLord wrote: »

Cell phone providers mandating dataplans with purchase of their smartphones helped kill it I bet. I know many people years ago were sticking their nose in the air against data plans proclaiming "Hmmmph! Wifi is everywhere! I don't need to pay $30/mo! Haha!."

yep and now that cell providers are putting a hard cap on your data usage and stiffing a huge unfair bill every month, now you wish wifi was free everywhere. At least i do ...