The rising awareness of the importance of the infrastructure is
encouraging. I assume here that the public sees ISP as part of the
infrastructure; however, that's rarely actually the case.
ISPs are usually retailers - buying bandwidth wholesale (say,
$1/mbps/month) and retailing it for, effectively, $30-50/mbps/mo. They
lease local loop (last mile) lines from local telcos, and the only
equipment they need are routers between backbone fiber feeds they leased
and the local loops they leased. They do not control the infrastructure.
Some independent ISPs are going beyond this: for example Sonic is
stringing their own last mile fiber in San Francisco. This is a big
deal, because both the backbone and the last mile infrastructure were
virtually untouchable for decades, owned by the same interests as they
were in the 20th century. Creation of independent/competing
infrastructures is the prerequisite for any fundamental progress in the
communication scenery. The current infrastructure predicates the
existence of MAGAf like a piece of dung in hot weather predicates lots
of flies. Complaining about flies is a total waste of time. Do something
about dung.
Is there any sign that Plan B will be more than a retailer?
On 11/5/19, 09:51, Karin Spaink wrote:
I’m not sure that all of you have seen this:
Plan B, a new, independent ISP & follow-up of XS4all, was launched today. After
many deliberations, including attempts to convince KPN to keep XS4all as an
independent ISP, and when that fell through: a serious attempt to buy XS4all with
the help of a trusted investos, only to be brushed off by KPN, XS4allMoetBlijven
has shifted gears.
- they will start a new ISP;
- they have a viable business plan;
- you can sign up starting Nov 11;
- they will be hiring people, starting Nov 11, too;
- they will start delivering internet services to subscribers early 2020
To accomplish all that, Plan B
- needs capital, and public support, and hence:
- it started a crowdfunding loan campaign yesterday, aiming for a minimum of
1,25 mln and aspiring to 2,5 mln.
- promising all lenders a 3 percent profit, to be paid alongside the
instalments, over the next 4 years.
Within 12 hours, they gathered almost 1 mln euro in loans. Current amount
gathered: 1.647.206 euro. And please note that the avarage amount loaned is an
effing 866 euro per investor.
This is extraordinary: the fund raising campaign for English version of The
Correspondent was widely - even internationally - publicised and promoted, yet
it took The Correspondent _eight_ fucking days to reach the one million mark.
Plan B reached that same mark in just over 12 hours, with no press _at all_
surrounding the start of their loan campaign.
It's a blast from the past: when XS4al started way back when, they hoped that
they’d gather 500 subscribers within the ensuing year: that would tide them
over. Instead, they got more than 500 subscribers in one weekend. The same
thing is happening now.
If you want to join:
https://crowdaboutnow.nl/campagnes/planb
If you want to read up:
https://xs4allmoetblijven.nl/
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