The Eye of the Storm?

Broadband municipal Wi-Fi networks are being deployed across the US, Japan and even (yes, I know ... its unbelievable) parts of Canada. Toronto is working on a blanket Wi-Fi network to be deployed in stages starting in December 2006. Telephone companies have hit on VoIP companies hard in the past, and have aggressively maintained what they reckon is their own turf. Phone companies did draw the line at PC-to-PC telephony (well they couldn't do much about it), but what will they do now that major cities in North America and Japan are adopting city-wide Wi-Fi that will be either cheap or very free?

Combine this municipal Wi-Fi with the advent of Wi-Fi Skype phones, as well as cell phones like mine that have Wi-Fi (and will soon run Skype), and we basically have free telephony! Is there even a need for a Verizon, Cingular, NTT DoCoMo or Rogers AT&T? I sense a huge war coming ... the phone companies vs. the governments (both provincial/state and federal). It'll be interesting to see what happens.