Today's Portsmouth Herald has a piece from Adam Leech on our wi-fi plans for downtown Portsmouth. Clearly wi-fi is a pet subject of Adam's at this point, which is great -- I love when a single reporter sticks with a story the whole way through! Anyway here it is.

A couple of notes on it. First, it is my personal opinion (not necessarily shared by the EDC, Wi-Fi Subcommittee, or the City Council) that the money should not be an obstacle. It's very short money, actually, when one considers the benefit and the potential positive inpact on economic development for the city. Any of dozens of businesses right here in town could easily pony up for the whole thing (making an unique advertising and goodwill coup in the process), but the city should also be able to find the money in their budget, as well. I shudder to think of all the ways our tax dollars are spent/wasted on far less useful stuff! At what figures to be a two bucks per year per citizen, covering the key downtown areas with wireless Internet is a very doable enterprise, IMO.

Secondly, on the usage statistics. I'm currently working on the survey data, i.e., pounding away in Excel Hell. Ginny Griffith will be presenting the data on Jan. 5th, so I'll have the usership breakdowns done by then.

Finally, if anybody can explain the headline of this article ("More Wi-Fi in city? Weight on businesses"), that'd be great, because, uh, I don't get it!