On Sunday 23 August 2009, Tom Kastner wrote: > Rion, > I've mostly been out of Stowe for the last many months, but I believe > there is a local committee working to > secure Stowe's place near the top of the list of "connected communities." > Maybe that's why your inquiries are > being disregraded. > Tom Thanks for your inputs, Tom. I suppose that 'local' committee would be working with GAW, recently Power-Shift, and would explain why my queries would be so poorly received, as it might be taken as a slight in the service of an otherwise reputable provider. "# The customer computer operating system is Windows (95, 98, ME, 2000, XP) or MacOS X 10.1 or later." Not even a mention of linux or unix does say something though, Also contrast: "Get 50% more speed to download movies, game online, use VoIP and much more for only $20 more per month!" with: "If residential usage exceeds more than 10 gigabytes of data transfer within one billing cycle (a billing cycle is one (1) month), customer's bandwidth service level will be limited to 50 percent of the contracted amount until the next billing cycle."
I don't see wireless ever competing on bandwidth intense services like video,
too easy to get dish-on-demand, comcraptastic,
even a verison datacard, to do better. Where it can compete is the ease of
access to double-play services; no wires, lines, digging, overbuilding,
etc... But they'll never get there from here if the value-proposition is only
connectivity. Privatized fiber will win every time
and cost the community more $ and provide less long-term security for a
valuable resource (my .02)
The interesting point here is: are there underserved in Stowe (I think so) and
is there a place for community/muni in an otherwise
corporate schema. I think there is, but i'll be hard to sell in an otherwise
conservative (heavily pro-private sector) town.
But don't think people aren't going hungry in a gold town, or that everyone has
triple-play and a shiny late-model car.
Just not the case, specially for native locals, service-workers, elderly, etc...
Stowe needs some hackers, me thinks:) According to GAW website, they will go
where they can count on 10 subscribers for every drop.
Rates are approx $40/month; so they effectively are saying $400/mo covers their
POP cost for a drop/backhaul.
I'm curious to know: if a community can guarantee that $400 would they be able
to create a mesh-net around those 10 nodes,
effectively repeating the signal to all who shell out for an AP.
To make things fair for GAW, the muni could 'subsidize' the extra traffic by
guaranteeing GAW a rebate for every repeater
on that mesh segment; maybe not 40/month, but say $10 or $15.
This way, instead of having GAW act (and compete) as a traditional ISP
(many2one) it could add value as a partner of the community
in such a way that guarantees its revenue stream while providing substantially
greater access and (potentially) more services
to ALL members of the community instead of just those who can afford their
margins.
Rion
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