In the wake of hurricane Katrina, with internet service unavailable to many business due to flodded central offices, the city of New Orleans opened it's wireless mesh network for anyone to access. This helped in an emergency situation and helped sustain businesses. Now 6 months after Hurricane Katrina, with a third of the city New Orleans still without basic phone service, Bellsouth and other telco's want to shut down the free access and prevent the city from doing so again in the future. If the Telco's cannot provide reliable service, stopping the only internet lifeline for some area's seems to be a bad idea. However when one looks at Bellsouth's Wimax installations in New Orleans, you can understand that they would prefer that people use thier free service, rather than a municipal free one.
Via [redherring.com]