Elizabeth Song | Reconnecting Philly

Looking for a new laptop? Forget those fancy gizmos at Computer Connection. Just north of Market Street, I spotted a hole-in-the-wall electronics store called the Super Computer Center, hosting a sidewalk sale at Depression-era rates. Old-school computers for $100. Laptops starting at $150. Buy one, get one free.

In a city where about a quarter of residents live below the national poverty line, the digital divide couldn't be any starker. According to a 2006 city survey, over 60 percent of Philadelphia households lack Internet access. Just walk into the public library on 40th and Walnut, and you'll see people queuing up for 30-minute Internet sessions.

To increase Internet access, former Mayor Street pioneered an ambitious plan to create a city-wide wireless network. That plan is now going up in flames. Earthlink, the Internet partner, has decided to exit the high-stakes, low-payback market of municipal wireless building. The company is dropping the ball after completing only 80 percent of the project and enrolling about 10,000 local clients.

Street's ambitious vision of creating a city-wide wireless network won't help bridge the digital divide any more than his waiting in line all day for an iPhone helped improve City Hall efficiency.

Philadelphia's brave new municipal wireless plan might be a great marketing boon, but it primarily caters to a thin slice of tech-savvy Philadelphians. The real trick behind ensuring broad-based computer literacy means getting computer technology to local homes and schools.

Municipal wireless has been heralded as the wave of the future, but large segments of Philadelphia are still left hanging at high tide.

We might joke about the flakiness of AirPennNet (or is it Wireless PennNet?) on campus, but city coverage currently doesn't extend to low-income parts of North Philly and degenerates past the third floor of some buildings.

Fortunately, Earthlink has already shouldered most of the burden by building the network. And now, where the network couldn't deliver, the city can.

Alongside the municipal wireless plan, the city launched Wireless Philadelphia, a non-profit organization that has granted free laptops and training to over a thousand disadvantaged residents, including single moms and ex-offenders. While Earthlink might be leaving, Wireless Philadelphia will not.

If City Hall gains ownership over this nascent wireless network, they should seize the chance to broaden the scope of these non-profit operations. We can be more liberal in granting free and subsidized wireless to residents and small businesses. We can increase Internet access in libraries and promote digital inclusion.

Don't get me wrong. A city wireless network is a valuable thing. Not just for yuppies and the powersuit crowd but also for local governments in monitoring things like street traffic. Despite its incompletion, we've still got the country's biggest municipal wireless hotspot, and we should make use of it.

But along with wireless access, we should promote local businesses that offer low-cost computer technology so the benefits diffuse to everyone. It's stores like the Super Computer Center that will ultimately help pave the way for easy, universal Internet access.

According to store manager, Naasir Muhammad, "Many people are afraid of computers because they don't understand them. We try to make this technology available to low-income families."

Wireless is an ambitious leap from this kind of technological autarky. While we can boast about subsidized low-cost wireless, it's hard to reach the roughly 300,000 Philadelphians with no Internet access at all. We need to start at the roots - wired or otherwise.

In taking the reins, Mayor Nutter needs to invest in concurrent programs that will not only provide Internet access but also low-cost computers and the technological know-how to use them.

Otherwise, it's almost like Philadelphia is trying to upgrade to Windows Vista when many of its residents are still trying to figure out MS-DOS.

Elizabeth Song is a College junior from Clemmons, N.C. Her e-mail is song@dailypennsylvanian.com. Striking a Chord appears Tuesdays.

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