A: Because Mayor Villaraigosa plans to make LA a WiFi city.

Via Laist.com, Villaraigosa and team kicked off the first stage today which is to hire a tech expert to design the infrastructure needed to make every corner of our city a free wireless internet access point. The plan is to have a city wide high-speed wireless network by 2009. A plan in the works exists downtown already. You can access a "hot spot" at Pershing Square, for example, for a small amount of time once you log in to LA WiFi. They call it the "unwired Pershing Square" now. Like a college library, these internet spots are not encouraging 24/7 use, just quick ways to access free info. Villaraigosa hopes to address a handful of issues with this large scale plan such as public building needs, internet in the classroom, internet for the poor, and emergency use. Imagine - in a couple years if you were stuck downtown in an earthquake you could just find the nearest Red Cross station or Google for up to the minute facts.

Labels: local, politics