Hazlett: Free Wireless as Doomed as Muni Wi-Fi

Remember that failed egalitarian experiment, muni Wi-Fi? Well, one former chief economist for the FCC predicts Chairman Kevin Martin’s proposal for skin-free wireless broadband is just as doomed.

Thomas Hazlett, who worked at the FCC from 1991-1992 under President Bill Clinton, is renowned for his knowledge of communications regulatory policy. He now is a professor at George Mason Law School. With that in mind, Hazlett calls Martin’s cost-free, skin-free wireless Internet idea a “policy gimmick” designed to hand spectrum to M2Z, a startup “pasted together by former FCC officials.”

The scheme is just a repeat of muni Wi-Fi, Hazlett argues, which flopped for a number of reasons.

And make sure to click on the source article’s second page. You know those awesomely bad, late-night “Bob” commercials? Let’s just say there’s a pretty funny parody with a Wi-Fi bent.

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