- Original Message -
From: Peter R. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: WISPA General List wireless@wispa.org
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 12:14 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Lemmings - suggestions
Mr. Hush,
Excellent plan. What agenda item will you be working on first?
SUGGESTIONS of what to do:
1) Inform the AP / UPI that as an industry group, we have decided
to stage a cyclic disconnect from public Inet in protest.
Any volunteers to write and distribute this Press Release?
Nobody can write for WISPA except WISPA people, either authorized or
designated by management.
2) As a group, inform the subs what we are doing so they are not in
the dark and clueless. Try to recruit their support.
Tell your customers that they are no longer getting Internet?
Naw, write a letter to your subs.
Dear customer, I started delivering affordable broadband several years
ago, in a free and open environment, where the services I offer were not
restricted nor taxed, nor controlled by any state or federal regulatory
agency. Recently, the FCC has reversed this trend, and has mandated that I
provide the ability to tap and deeply examine, and then provide requested
information from the traffic that travels to your home / office / computer /
etc. The costs of this are as yet unknown, and my ability to provide you
affordable broadband is in serious jeopardy. While assisting law
enforcement's legitemate need to track down criminal, criminal activity, and
other hazards to our community and / or nation is not objectionable to us,
and we in fact wish to help where we can, the FCC has decided that
providers will bear the costs of compliance with as yet undetermined
requirements. This mandate upon my business could very well put me out of
business with no notice whatsoever, and leave you without service
unexpectedly.
I would encourage you to read the FCC's comments and rules at www.fcc.gov
and to contact your representatives at the federal level and the FCC to ask
why your internet service must be placed under the control of the federal
government, putting your ability to get affordable broadband at risk.
There are some options, one is to simply duck the law, and hope enforcment
never catches us. Another is just to pre-emptively shut down and find
other means of earning a living, but losing all my investment, time, and the
jobs my business creates. Yet another option is to estimate the cost of
compliance and assess you a one time fee for capital expenditures, since we
lack the ready capital to buy the very expensive solutions currently in
existence, or to finance this with a permanent CALEA surcharge on top of our
normal service charges.These fees could range from $50 to $500 dollars
one time, or $5 to $15 per month for continuing compliance costs.
The federal government long ago used your tax dollars to pay for the the
telephone companies to be compliant with CALEA, but since WISP's are small
business, we have no multi-million dollar lobbyist industry in Washington DC
to protect us from arbitrary mandates and regulations.
This pattern of regulation and usurping the ability of small business to
provide necessary services is a benefit to the large corporate entities like
telephone companies and cable companies who, if small businesses like us are
force into non-competitive price structures or just out of business, will
have no competition, allowing prices for internet to spiral out of control.
3) Present to the press the WISPA member total subs count, and ask
for the FCC / Gov to really evaluate the economic impact to GDP per
state / national level that shutting off wisps would result in.
No one knows this number, but you can take the count from the 477 forms.
It was about 2% right?
Ahh, we're dead anyway. Might as well call it 0%, right?
--
WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org
Subscribe/Unsubscribe:
http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless
Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
