“Free” (i.e. you paid for it elsewhere) WiFi was actually running on Fayetteville Street in early 2006, when most of the area was still blocked off as a construction zone. The announcement is a large expansion of the concept.
It would be interesting to know how much the city paid for Internet service those months when there wasn’t much place to sit and open a laptop between the Capitol and the old Convention Center, but it’s small potatoes compared to more spectacular waste on all sides.
