Monday, July 17, 2006

Everything in the World You've Ever Wanted

I could hardly believe my eye-brains today as I read in the good ol' Metro Express that wireless internet access might soon be offered on some trains.

"That's a huge step forward for humanity," I thought to myself. "Not for me since my laptop is 4+ years old and probably couldn't handle a wireless card anyway, but for humanity in general, that's pretty rad."

Then I got to the next sentence:

Metro is moving forward with plans to give companies the right to install wireless Internet access at certain bus stops and in tunnels in exchange for shared revenue from advertising or user fees.


What a thing to read on a Monday morning. "We're going to offer wireless internet! But only in some places, probably the rich parts of town, and it's not us, it's other companies and they will probably charge by the minute and one company will probably get an exclusive deal to provide access and will probably not give a damn if users have problems. It'll be just like the whole VERIZON ONLY policy in the tunnels, only wireless!" To be fair, it won't be just like the Verizon thing. Everybody will probably be allowed to pay outrageous fees to use the wireless access.

How is it that entire cities (i.e. Philadelphia and San Francisco and Seattle) can embark on projects to blanket every neighborhood with public wireless service and Metro can't even put in their own antennas? Oh yeah. It's because Virginians want to use Metro and not pay for it. Thanks a lot Virginia.

But hey, at least Metro will get some revenue out of it. If they get enough they could lower the fares, right? Right?

6 comments:

Mike Croghan said...

On behalf of Virginia: you're entirely welcome.

:-P

:-)

kate said...

Hm, that's funny! The metro SAYS it's taking $1.35 per ride from me to get from Rosslyn to D.C. ...
No, I know what you're saying. C'mon, though, Schuyler -- do you really WANT D.C. to be as cool as Seattle and S.F.? It's just a wannabe. Always will be.

Sonja Andrews said...

It's not Virginians, per se, it's the filthy lucre developers and zoning boards and don't get me started about politics in this stupid backwater of a state.

[REDACTED] said...

Ah yes. I should not have implicated all Virginians in this. I apologize for that. I meant only to implicate those that determine public Northern Virginia policy. But I don't want to get you started.

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