Friday, March 04, 2005

Internet access as a public service

There is continued talk about internet access to be provided as a public service. To me this sounds like a stretch. Why not have offered telephone access as a public service? To possibly answer my own question, perhaps it is that the Internet has more uses than telephony, like VoIP telephony, access to tax info (including submission), phone books (up-to-date and less cost to provide), pay tickets/fines (potentially cheaper than physically doing it) etc. I think there is already a community in Georgia that has this, and Philadelphia (or is it Pennsylvania) is thinking about doing it. But for whatever reason (the pessimist in me?) every time I hear about some place offering internet access as a public service I just start to wonder how realistic it is.