Whatever happened to municipal Wi-Fi?

While large-scale Wi-Fi sputtered, mobile carriers in America and Canada appear to have been prodded into action.

Together with their wired divisions they vociferously denounced any public money assigned to private city-wide networks, even lobbying for laws banning it. By 2008, however, 3G networks were everywhere, and by 2012 3G+ followed across the full footprint of AT&T and T-Mobile (albeit in fits and starts). Verizon lagged, then leapt forward with 4G LTE. Carriers now compete for the broadest LTE rollout, which provides data rates as fast as cable modems, though at a high price. Wander the streets of San Francisco today, or any city in the developed world, for that matter, and you find it hard not to stumble on a free network. Every cafe, convention center and airport has Wi-Fi, as do academic campuses, many city canters and retail districts. Telecoms firms like AT&T supplement mobile spectrum with Wi-Fi hotspots and zones, and most of the Wi-Fi equipment firms that survived the metro-network days sell hardware both for corporate networks and for outdoor deployment by carriers.