Mark,
I know what you think about the government and that it will not change.
I am no different than you in my belief that a hands off approach is
best. I mean that wholeheartedly. There is one distinct difference
between you and me. I have resolved myself to know that the government
has made the Internet and broadband a policy issue in all branches and
at all levels. I see state and federal laws being made, judicial cases
being tried in court, loans and grants issued and mandates being
executed every single day. In short, the battle you are trying to fight
is lost. I will never tell you that you are not entitled to believe what
you want and take whatever stand you feel is justified so long as it
does not harm me or others. However, I will not accept your position as
a direction for my company and I will oppose it within the WISPA
organization because I believe your attempts to ignore FCC requirements
are dangerous and anti-productive to our efforts to interface with the
government to make sure policy interests are represented on behalf of
the WISP industry. Ignoring and accusing those you wish to influence is
bad politics, Mark. That is why I am aggressively countering your
position on this publicly. I personally wish that your snubbing of the
FCC was done outside of WISPA public list servers. This is MY position
though so do as you please for now. Take heed that I will lobby for your
public stance of breaking the law to become a basis for punitive action
within WISPA in the future if a majority within this organization agree
with me. If all of WISPA thinks we should allow the list to be used to
lobby for people to break the law then my days here will be numbered. I
will not be a party to your "tea" party over filling out a broadband
registration form or any other conspiracy driven stance toward breaking
the law. In short Mark, I want you to stop telling people they should
break the law. You are doing us harm and I want you to stop doing this
publicly. We formed WISPA to interface with the FCC and Congress on
helping direct policy, not to ignore, shun and accuse those
institutions. Please stop now.
Scriv
Mark Koskenmaki wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Scrivner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 9:44 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] It's been a long road
Sorry to answer my own post but it is late and I read this and thought
my message may have not been clear. When I say below that your opinions
on this do not count I am not referring to the context of your opinions
importance within WISPA. Here your opinions always count. I was
referring to what the government is looking at and what they ignore.
No need to explain John. It was clear from the start.
Sadly we do not have as much representation which is favorable to our
industry as we had under Michael Powell and Company. The game is afoot
to make life harder for us and easier for the poor ILECs. We need to be
very careful going forward. Life could be very scary for those who do
not have a strong foothold in their business. It may even be quite scary
for those of us who have a strong hold. Asking for the government to
stay out of our business now is like asking the biker to leave your
daughter alone as she is driving off down the road on the back of the
Harley. I hope my position in all this makes a little more sense now.
Maybe. But I'm still going to tell the biker he better behave.
The question I have for you is...
In two years, when your filing at the FCC includes the addresses and IP
numbers of every customer over 200Kb/s, what will you do?
Will you go along, or will you suddenly find religion and start a fight you
surrendered already?
As for me, I will be eventually changing my service descriptions to remove
all references to "broadband" and there will won't be a "kb/sec"
designation. And if the FCC asks, I do not offer "broadband internet". I
will have alternative service descriptions. "Gateway services" has a nice
ring. Or maybe I'll offer free ( no cost to me content ) streaming video
services and call my service "wireless video" and it just happens to gateway
you to the internet. My business name does not have an internet reference.
I'll gladly alter wording for the rest, as well.
Of course, this will eventually mean that the FCC will start mandating
network practices and defining and regulating connectivity. Maybe it'll
buy me a few years before I have to sell to Qwest or Sprint, but I will
NEVER comply with such an intrusive thing. I'll "game" them if I have to,
and if they regulate it this tight, I'm gone.
I just hope to God that WISPA's on our side, not the government's.
Scriv
John Scrivner wrote:
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