Reporters sometimes get basic facts wrong
Posted by Russell Senior on 22 March 2008The New York Times is running a story that mentions the Portland wifi network operated by MetroFi in passing. Unless something happened recently without us knowing about it, the story gets things substantially wrong. Here’s what Ian Urbina wrote, in part:
In Tempe, Ariz., and Portland, Ore., for example, hundreds of subscribers have found themselves suddenly without service as providers have cut their losses and either abandoned their networks or stopped expanding capacity.
Urbina, or to be fair perhaps his editors under pressures of space, conflate the Tempe, Arizona and Portland networks into a single sentence and consequently propagate an inaccurate perception of what is happening in Portland. First of all, as we understand it, MetroFi Portland has very few paying subscribers. According to Logan Kleier as of a few months ago, certainly not hundreds. The vast majority of its users utilize the advertising-supported service. Second of all, MetroFi has not (again, unless something has happened very recently) abandoned their network, suddenly cutting off service. There are plenty of places in Portland without service, and without any prospect of service, and even places “with” service might not actually have service. But that is different.
The MetroFi Portland network has substantially stalled. The outward signs provide no obvious prospect it will ever be finished as originally envisioned. However, hundreds of subscribers in Portland have not suddenly lost service they had previously, as far as we can tell.
A quiet path to termination?
Posted by Russell Senior on 6 March 2008The Portland Mercury published a story recently that casts doubt on the longterm viability of the MetroFi network in Portland. The two notable quotes are:
“We’ve been trying to contact Haas, in order to redefine the relationship, but he’s been difficult to get a hold of.” — Logan Kleier
and
City Commissioner Dan Saltzman [...] has said that MetroFi’s conduct has been “regrettable,” though he will allow the project “a quiet path to termination”