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New Orleans free WiFi - inspired by Locustworld Mesh work during the hurricane

The decision to go live with a completely free city-wide WiFi service for New Orleans isn't quite as unique as publicists are saying. It follows an awful lot of volunteer effort during the recent hurricane by several local communities, most of which used mesh networks from LocustWorld.

The decision to make the Internet completely free in the flooded city will not go unchallenged. However, several attempts have been made to outlaw WiFi urban networks - commercial ones - by several States, seeking to make it illegal to provide Internet unless you're the local incumbent telco.

Towns affected by the rush of refugees, like Vivian, have been at the forefront of earlier network creation during the emergency. Mesh pioneers like Kenny Bain - a LocustWorld mesh franchisee - saw the VoIP possibilities of the WiFi mesh to link villages and regions where normal phone connections had died.

The announcement by New Orleans, however, goes way further than even the mesh community expected. The network being set up isn't a volunteer net, funded by contributions; it's a city-owned project, designed to provide the Internet free of charge to all citizens. It is, however, getting free equipment donated.

As such it makes it hard for competitors to see how any commercial ISP can compete, unless it is heavily restricted.

Mayor C. Ray Nagin issued a statement: "Now, with a single step, city departments, businesses and private citizens can access a tool that will help speed the rebuilding of New Orleans as a better, safer and stronger city," he said. "This is how technology fuels collaboration, allowing our best ideas to come together so we can speak with one voice."

He's on a head-on collision course with the State of Louisiana, which, says the Washington Post, has already passed laws prohibiting any locality from offering Internet connection speeds of more than 144 kilobits per second.

Texas attempted to create a monopoly for local telcos, but the proposed law was withdrawn.

The justification for the new network is simple: other telecoms networks are still not working. Almost certainly, the new wireless Internet will be re-assessed after the emergency is over.

The best available model for how it will evolve, is probably shown by the Stockholm fibre network which has been assembled over the last decade by the local authority, which has resolved that all basic bit-carrying is a public utility, charged at cost, over fibre.

Tags - New Orleans, WiFi