A perfect reason why Municipality is a VERY bad
thing.
The top contender bidders were large super
companies willing to spend lots of money, in exchange for the marketing
benefit. Basically publuc Ride of ways, that Small independent WISPs have
had to fight tooth and nail to gain access to will just be handed over to the
winner. Unrealistic goals have been represented on
what benefits the consumer will be able to
obtain. Basically the network will end up being a low grade commodity
network, because it is being design to serve the masses at to low a cost,
that the technology can't realistically support. The users will then
have SPAM and advertising forced upon them against their will. New players
will not be able to enter the market effectively, because of the subsidized
competition of the municiplaity supported venture.
Consumers perception of what a fair price should be, will be set/branded to
low, making provider that offer a higher reasonable price based on what it costs
to deliver broadband, to be viewed as a rip off company, destroying the ability
for an ISP to offer a quality service for a fair price and gain market
share. Then the MESH node, which I can almost guarantee will be 400mw-1w
Omnis at MAX EIRP will flood the city with Noise destroying the spectrum for the
general public and Fixed Wireless providers attempting to offer
quality. Basically, its taking a very valuable and short in supply
product (spectrum) and wasting it on wide scale commodity deployment instead of
using a technology better for that, such as Cable that could be supplied in
infinate supply. At least if the left unclicenced spectrum to
independent providers, a select number of consumers would have the choice
to purchase a higher level of service from them.
These decissions brinf tears to my eyes because it
strengthens three principles.
1> That low price is more important
than Quality of service.
2> The big players with money win,
regardless of whether they have the best plan or the best experience. For
example, for a very technical project, they chose a marketing
company.
3> That a provider can feed a municipality
a boat load full of unrealistic expectations and non-efficient spectral design
and win, by buying the agreement.
I see a history of government that makes decissions
based on being bought. For example, Microsoft gets off the hook for trust
court battles, as soon as Microsoft agrees to donate a bunch of free computers
to schools. My point is that government has a responsibility to the
voters adn tax payers, so their decissions are not always based on what is
right, wrong, or best for competition or the industry. Judgement is scewed by
their responsibilities to the tax payer.
A decission that will look good in the public eye,
isn't always the best solution.
Thats why its best for open market competition to
make these decissions and not the governement.
Tom DeReggiRapidDSL & Wireless,
IncIntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband
- Original Message -
From:
Cliff
To: Peter R. ; noc.kl.terranova.net ; WISPA General
List
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 9:05
AM
Subject: [WISPA] Earthlink to build
Philadelphia wireless network
http://q1.schwab.com/content/rb/2005/10/04/1136855.html
5:52 PM ET
10/04/05Earthlink to build Philadelphia wireless
network
NEW YORK,
Oct 4 (Reuters) - Internet service provider EarthLink Inc. plans to build a
city-wide wireless network for Philadelphia to provide residents and
businesses with Internet access, according to the
company.
EarthLink
will spend about $10 million to $14 million to build the network that will
include equipment from Motorola Inc. and privately held Tropos Networks, according to Philadelphia's Chief
Information Officer, Dianah
Neff.
The city
chose EarthLink over Hewlett-Packard Co. , which was
also short-listed from a group of 12 companies that offered proposals for the
project. Analysts said the deal could open up a new growth opportunity for
EarthLink.
"Strategically
its very important. From a financial perspective, its
not enough to move the needle in the short term," said Jefferies analyst Youssef Squali, who estimated
that at least another 20 U.S. cities are looking at similar
projects.
If
Philadelphia
is a success, it could help EarthLink win some of these contracts, independent
telecommunications analyst Jeff Kagan said in an
e-mail.
"This win
is much bigger than Philadelphia for EarthLink because if they do
a good job there are countless other metro areas who would hire them to do the
same thing," Kagan
said.
Philadelphia was one
of the first of many U.S. cities to look at building
municipal wireless networks, mainly to encourage economic growth and provide
affordable Web access to poorer residents.
So
