California Business Minute™

Hi, I am Tim Johnson and welcome to the California Business Minute.

The city council of the northern California town of Sebastopol has turn
down an offer for free municipal WiFi service.

The city signed an agreement last autumn with a regional WiFi networking
provider Sonic.net 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 city council recently voted to rescind the
agreement authorizing the WiFi mesh network, effectively canceling the project.
Mayor Craig Litwin said some of the town's citizens had objected because of the
suspicion that it may be a health hazard due to electromagnetic radiation.

There is really no evidence on which these fears are based. In fact, according to
Sonic CEO Dane Jasper, exposure to Wi-Fi signals would be a "drop in the bucket"
compared to the amount of radio signals that come from TV, radio and cell phones
on a daily basis. Jasper also said that Sonic detected 25 different Wi-Fi signals
already active in Sebastopol.

I am Tim Johnson and this has been the California Business Minute.

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