A fresh perspective on Municipal Wi-Fi
So far the story about municipal Wi-Fi has been all about local governments trying to enable universally available, cheap broadband access to its citizens. And the major telcos have fought these initiatives on the grounds that government interference in the marketplace is generally unfair and inefficient.
However, in the Wall Street Journal, Andy Kessler frames this in a very interesting new way, saying that it's really all about local governments trying to reduce the excessive telecoms bills they pay to incumbent telcos.
To James Enck: what is the % of revenues of incumbent telcos that come from public sector contracts, particularly at the municipal/city level? Would losing these contracts in the next 5 years have any material impact on telco cash flow?