Puget Sound Transit gives wifi to the carless geeks

In that earlier segment, the staff and students discussed how tablets made them more productive because they could work during the commute to and from school. Now, being kids, those folks may be on school buses or in their parents' car for the 'commute', but if you think about adults then we are quite likely to be on a bus or light rail system or something similar. For many of us, work requires a connection, although I'm sure there is something that you can do without one. For me, and for many of my friends, a connection would double the range of work that we could do while getting too and from work.

Unfortunately, the bus schedules just suck around here for me, getting to work is fine with times between 6am and 7:30am ... but the bus doesn't come back until after 6pm... which is after I'm usually home to have supper with my kids. Oh well, maybe someday they'll increase the level of service to my area and I can stop driving my Grand Am to work every day

Very cool, which route numbers have wifi? Is it just Metro, or Sound Transit as well? I admit I didn't watch the whole thing, I actually have work to do today

Japan, South Korea, and many countries outside the U.S. have citywide Wi-Fi access because those countries often have a state run (or at the very least state supported) telecommunications "company" providing the access in a highly urban area. The economies of scale in cities like Tokyo or Seoul make it much more reasonable for a single state run telco to provide Internet access to the majority because everyone lives and works in the city--minimal effort to install access points and fiber optic cable equals the maximum result of customers served... and there's a monopoly on the service.

In the U.S., a great number of city workers live outside the city in the suburbs and commute to work in their own vehicles rather than buses and trains for whatever reason. Both those suburban and urban users have the choices of numerous Internet providers (DSL, cable, satellite, dial-up, etc.) at different price points and service levels. The power of the market and of choice...

If it was a monopoly Internet provider in the U.S. providing Wi-Fi, everyone would be up in arms because there was no choice. If a municipality such as SF or LA provided "free" Wi-Fi, they'd jack up their already sky high property taxes or sales taxes to pay for the Wi-Fi that not everyone in the city was using and/or was being misappropriated by suburbanites that came into the city with a laptop and a Wi-Fi card looking for "free" Wi-Fi.

So what's the solution to this mess?

Don't know but that's probably a topic for a future Ten ep!