Blog Juice for Educational Technology

In an attempt to lure residents and businesses back to New Orleans, public officials plan to make it the nation’s first major city with a comprehensive, free, wireless Internet network. Other cities, including Philadelphia and San Francisco, are plotting wireless networks of their own, but New Orleans may get one sooner — 10 square miles have already been covered so that municipal agencies can more easily coordinate their hurricane-recovery efforts.

Instead of outsourcing the network-management duties, as Philadelphia and San Francisco have proposed doing, New Orleans plans to run the network itself. That may infuriate cable operators and phone companies, who have objected strongly to citywide wireless proposals. The companies fear that such a municipal project will take a bite out of their networking market share. (CNET News)