Wi-Fi must be regulated before it can be considered a Public Utility
In today’s interconnected world, access to reliable, high-speed internet isn’t a luxury—it’s a fundamental necessity for education, healthcare, employment, and social connection. Yet, we continue to treat it as a commodity, a service you buy, rather than a utility, a right you have. To understand why Wi-Fi should be considered a utility, we need to look at the playbook for established utilities like water, electricity, and plumbing.These services are more than just conveniences; they’re governed by strict regulations that ensure safety, reliability, and universal access.
The Regulatory Framework of Utilities
Utilities operate within a highly regulated environment, with oversight from federal, provincial/state, and local agencies. This regulation is designed to protect the public and ensure essential services are safe, accessible, and fairly priced.
Building and Safety Codes
Think about the infrastructure of your home or business that you frequent. It’s not a free-for-all; it’s built to rigorous standards.
- Building Code: This code dictates the fundamental structure of a building, from its foundation to its roof. It ensures the physical integrity of a structure, protecting inhabitants, employees, and customers from collapse and environmental hazards.
- Electrical Code: The Electrical Code (CEC, NEC, etc) sets the standard for safe electrical wiring and equipment installation. It’s designed to prevent fire and electric shock, ensuring all circuits, outlets, and devices are installed correctly. This is why you need a permit and an inspection when doing major electrical work.
- Plumbing Code: Similar to the electrical code, the plumbing code ensures safe and sanitary water and waste systems. It dictates everything from pipe materials and sizes to the correct venting of drains to prevent the buildup of dangerous sewer gases.
Inspection and Certification
For these regulated industries, safety isn’t an option; it’s a legal requirement. When a new building is constructed or a major renovation occurs, inspectors—certified professionals employed by the local government—conduct a series of mandatory inspections at various stages.
- Permitting: Before any work begins, a contractor or homeowner must secure a permit, providing a detailed plan of the work to be done.
- Rough-In Inspection: This happens after the “guts” of the system (wiring, plumbing pipes) are installed but before walls are sealed up. The inspector checks that all work complies with the relevant codes.
- Final Inspection: This occurs after all work is complete and before the system is put into use. The inspector ensures everything is functional and safe.
This process guarantees a baseline of safety and performance. You can trust that the water from your tap is safe to drink and that your home won’t catch fire due to faulty wiring.
The Case for Regulating Wi-Fi as a Utility
If we are to elevate Wi-Fi to the status of a utility, we must apply a similar regulatory framework. The current market, where Wi-Fi is a for-profit service, is failing to deliver on the fundamental principles of a utility: universal access, reliability, and affordability. Here’s why Wi-Fi must be regulated and certified before it can be truly considered a utility:
- Public Safety and Reliability: A utility must be reliable and secure. Today’s Wi-Fi networks are often a patchwork of private, unsecured hotspots and expensive, unreliable services. As more critical services—like telehealth, online education, and public safety announcements—move online, a standardized, reliable network is essential. Regulation would ensure network uptime, security protocols, and redundancy, preventing widespread outages that could have catastrophic consequences. Think of it this way: you wouldn’t accept a power grid that regularly fails; why do we accept the same from our Wi-Fi connection?
- Consumer Protection and Fair Pricing: Unlike traditional utilities, which are often monopolies regulated by a Public Utility Commission (PUC) to ensure fair rates, WLAN professionals operate with little oversight in many areas. This lack of regulation often leads to poorly performing Wi-Fi deployments. Regulating Wi-Fi as a utility would give a regulatory body the ability to accredit design and performance. Protecting consumers from predatory practices, accredited deployments would ensure consumers that the Wi-Fi network they are using is, at a minimum, a well-designed and good-performing network.
- Bridging the Digital Divide: The “digital divide” is a stark reality, and it’s not just a rural vs urban split. Wi-Fi performance and reliability vary from venue to venue. Treating Wi-Fi as a utility would mandate minimum thresholds of performance, reliability, and safety, compelling WLAN professionals to design and implement Wi-Fi that meets accepted best practices, just as electricity and telephone companies were once required to do.
- Standardization and Interoperability: Imagine if every electrical appliance (in the same country, let’s not get crazy) required a different type of outlet. It would be chaos. The current Wi-Fi landscape is similarly fragmented. Regulation could establish minimum thresholds for protocols, amendments, or specifications, setting the bar for performance, security, and equipment, ensuring a seamless user experience across different networks and devices. Certification would guarantee that every piece of a Wi-Fi network meets these standards, ensuring a unified and consistent service for everyone.
Wi-Fi is the essential infrastructure of the 21st century. It’s time we treat it with the same seriousness as the utilities that power our homes and deliver our water. By establishing a robust regulatory framework, we can build a future where a secure, reliable, and affordable internet is not a privilege, but a right for all, with performance and reliability guarantees.
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