Columbia Law professor Tim Wu, writing in Slate, discusses the whys and wherefores of citywide WiFi’s continued failure to compete with the entrenched technology.

Setting up a large wireless network isn’t as expensive as installing
wires into people’s homes, but it still costs a lot of money. Not
billions, but still millions. To recover costs, the private “partner”
has to charge for service. But if the customer already has a cable or
telephone connection to his home, why switch to wireless unless it is
dramatically cheaper or better? In typical configurations, municipal
wireless connections are slower, not dramatically cheaper, and by their
nature less reliable than existing Internet services. Those facts have
put muni Wi-Fi in the same deathtrap that drowned every other company
that peddled a new Net access scheme.

Why have municipal Wi-Fi networks been such a flop? - By Tim Wu - Slate Magazine