While Bruce Schimmel heaps praise on Mayor John Street's plan to provide wireless Internet access throughout the city [Loose Canon, "The Philadelphia Experiment," Aug. 25, 2005], he neglects to address a few items that could easily short-circuit the entire network.

The search for wireless connections involves more than Comcast, giant Internet service providers and Wireless Philadelphia — the city's nonprofit agency tasked with running the city's wireless network. Our company, Closed Networks, currently offers wireless Internet connections throughout a 25-square-mile area (soon to be 50 square miles) of Philadelphia — largely Center City, North Philly and South Philly. We are not a giant company, yet we plan to launch similar operations in additional cities in the near future. Perhaps more importantly, we are affordable. We charge just $20 per month — a figure nearly identical to what Wireless Philadelphia hopes to offer once its network is constructed. Our wireless Internet connections are also as fast — and in many cases faster — than what most companies currently offer.

Wireless Philadelphia is not the only organization endorsing the lofty ideal of bringing Internet service to traditionally underserved areas of the city. Schimmel notes AT&T and Lucent Technologies have recently helped fund pilot programs, yet fails to acknowledge that T-Mobile and Comcast have sponsored free wireless Internet access hot spots for some time now in the South Street Headhouse area.

To our credit, we provided the expertise and network to make the recent Live 8 concert in Philadelphia available over the Internet. We did this after being asked for assistance by Wireless Philadelphia, and we continue to carry its traffic on our network today. Like Schimmel, we believe private/public partnerships work best to solve, well, just about any problem you can think up.

Intel's donation of $100,000 to test hot spots is an eye-opener, yet we think far more of its plan to place 10,000 computers into homes in poor neighborhoods. After all, why build a network if no one has the equipment to access it — or worse, knows how to use a computer? And the network is, in fact, what we should be talking about when we look at this so-called new cooperative wholesale way of doing business Schimmel endorses.

Wireless Philadelphia's business model is, in fact, not new. Basically, Wireless Philadelphia will raise funds to build a network and then rent space to giant Internet service providers (and others) to provide services. Schimmel hopes this will launch a sea of competition, thereby lowering prices for everyone. But what happens if they build a network and nobody comes? What happens if the customer base cannot sustain the network? We know of the grand plans to provide free wireless Internet access in many places throughout the city — who is going to pay for these spots?

The answer is, of course, uncertain. We build our business the old-fashioned way: one customer at a time. As our business grows, so does our network. There are many examples of what happens when customers fail to support a business model. First, the business sacrifices service to maintain income. Next, cannibalism occurs in the ranks. Finally, the business dies. If the city owns the $10 million network, guess who is left holding the bag? Why, you and me and the rest of the taxpayers.

We support bridging the digital divide but believe the best way to do that is not to build a wireless network for the city of Philadelphia. Wireless Philadelphia should concentrate on providing educational, computer and technological skills necessary for those living in underserved and disadvantaged areas to take advantage of wireless Internet access, not construct a network whose plan, as Schimmel writes, "appears to be financially sound, but only time will tell."

Tom Christie is the chief operating officer of Closed Networks, Inc. If you would like to respond to this Slant or submit one of your own (750 words), e-mail Duane Swierczynski.