Dan McGuire says, in part... > I think free public access to wireless including the necessary > continuous technological upgrades would be possible if it were > structured as free to residential consumers but at market rates to > business. snip > There is no > reason, a far as I know, a city utility offering free service to > residents couldn't compete with other ISPs in the metro business market. > If necessary there could be levels of service, with the higher volume > users subsidizing the more infrequent users.
What? This is oxymoronic. Why would high volume businesses pay excessively high rates to a government utility so that the utility could then use a significant portion of those high business rates to provide free service to thousands of low volume residential customers. Market rates are competitive rates, and are inconsistent with the business model you've described. You are charging excessively high rates to one class of customers and giving the service away free to another class of customer. And, you'd be driving service providers with competitive rates out of business. Any government utility trying to implement such a business model would soon find themselves with NO business customers and growing numbers of residential customers clamoring for more free service! A totally unsustainable business model! Michael Hohmann Linden Hills -who just returned from seeing More by Four at Orchestra Hall and visiting many smokey bars/restaurants with friends along the Mall. > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of Dan McGuire > Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2004 8:05 PM > To: Mpls Issues > Subject: Re: [Mpls] Going Wireless in Minneapolis > > > I think free public access to wireless including the necessary > continuous technological upgrades would be possible if it were > structured as free to residential consumers but at market rates to > business. Mpls is a big enough market to make it possible. There is no > reason, a far as I know, a city utility offering free service to > residents couldn't compete with other ISPs in the metro business market. > If necessary there could be levels of service, with the higher volume > users subsidizing the more infrequent users. That was the theoretical > structure of the old Bell system; they got greedy, however, and the > government regulators were never able to keep up with them on the rate > structures. Keeping track of the rate structure for a new wi-fi system > to keep it free to the masses would not be impossible, but it would > require some close scrutiny. > Dan McGuire > Ericsson > snip REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
