Most RFP's I have reviewed including Atlanta are hot for someone to come
in and give away free wi-fi, especially to schools and the under-served
sections of town.
There are a couple of problems:
1) How do you monetize that?
2) Most of the under-served don't have computers
The only real threat to the telcos and cablecos is that the cheap users
will use the free system, so some of their revenues will decrease. But
so will support costs. And I am sure at some point they will stop
maintaining and/or upgrading low revenue facilities, furthering the
Digital Divide. But that won't stop them from collecting USF monies.
There are monies available to build these networks if the governments
could get it together:
Quality of Life grants; Homeland Security funding; USF monies for
libraries and schools - and those are just the ones off the top of my
pointed beanie.
It's all coming to a head. Between now and 2009, lots of turbulence to
come. Much of it hangs on the lame telecom re-write and how much of a
push-over Martin will be. If he gets a spine, it could be a great
economic revival.
- Peter
Dawn DiPietro wrote:
All,
As quoted from the article;
"“The competitive impacts of municipal broadband will be especially
threatening to incumbents to the extent that muni nets can be cost-
justified
by increased efficiencies, cost savings and other ‘internal’ or social
benefits captured by local governments, schools, and other public
institutions,”
the report states."
While some understand the cost savings these networks can bring others
are still focused on the "free wifi cloud" for the population in these
areas. There needs to
be more focus on the fact that there are so many other benefits to
these municipal networks such as water meter reading, public safety
communications etc. For
these applications to work a robust network has to be built with the
following in mind low latency, 99999 reliability, high capacity, and
so on. Cost savings for
local government, businesses and residential should also be factored
into the equation for services such as telecommunications times X
number of phone lines just
for government offices and broadband access for all schools. I
understand that this is only the tip of the ice burg and there are so
many other applications and cost savings for these networks. My point
is that the network has to be built robust enough to be able to
support it all including a wifi cloud.
Thanks to Jack for bringing this article to the list. :-)
Regards,
Dawn DiPietro
http://www.telecommagazine.com/newsglobe/article.asp?HH_ID=AR_2244
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