California town gets cold feet about free municipal WiFi

26 Mar 2008 | 15:28 GMT

By Egan Orion

A TEMPEST in the teapot sized Northern California town of Sebastopol has bullied the city council to turn down the offer of free municipal WiFi service.

The city had signed an agreement last autumn with a regional WiFi networking provider that had previously installed similar municipal WiFi services in Santa Rosa and Petaluma. The network would offer free wireless Internet access to users of laptop computers and mobile phones throughout the town centre.

Santa Rosa based Sonic.net had done preliminary planning work and set up an initial WiFi hot spot downtown when the Sebastopol City Council voted 4-0 last week to rescind the city's agreement authorising the WiFi mesh network, thus effectively cancelling the project.

Mayor Craig Litwin said some of the town's citizens had objected and brought up concerns that "create enough suspicion that there may be a health hazard."

Apparently the opposition was driven by one resident, Sandi Maurer, who said she is sensitive to electricity like some people are sensitive to trace amounts of chemicals. She and others gathered about 500 signatures expressing concerns about the potential for health hazards due to WiFi electromagnetic radiation.

Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper reviews the town's decision to void the company's WiFi network agreement in his bog. He points out that many university and government studies have shown that there are no harmful effects from even higher power electromagnetic radiation sources, such as cellphone towers.

He observes that studies have found that electrosensitive individuals' symptoms are unrelated to radio signal exposure, writing, "The conclusion of study after study is that the symptoms are psychosomatic, and are likely a result of fear and stress. In the case of Wi-Fi and other radio signals, this suggests that what we have to fear from Wi-Fi is simply fear of Wi-Fi."

Jasper points out that Sebastopol is already immersed in WiFi radiation, with over 250 existing WiFi access points already in operation all around the town.

But don't tell Sandi Maurer that - she'll probably have to move to some town that bans electronics devices entirely and is enclosed in a giant Faraday cage. µ

L'Inq
The Press Democrat

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