http://techdirt.com/articles/20060829/190813.shtml
Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
from the /is-that-about-face,-or-just-two-faced?/ dept
Remember the good old days of... well, last year, when telcos were
telcos and they absolutely hated muni-WiFi? It was such a huge threat to
their business that they gave Congress people plenty of money to make it
illegal. Of course, that was before they actually bothered looking at
many of the muni-WiFi proposals, and recognized they weren't really
"government-run" at all, but were really no different than traditional
telco deals. The government was simply giving away rights of way for
placing equipment in return for promises of service. The providers could
still be commercial providers with real business models. Suddenly, the
industry opposition quieted down. Industry associations claimed that
muni-WiFi was great... and AT&T (whose former employee introduced the
bill to ban muni-WiFi) was seen providing the very same "free,
tax-supported" WiFi they had screamed about just months before. Well,
congrats to AT&T for all that hard work trying to stop muni-WiFi. You've
just won another muni-WiFi deal (this one without taxpayer funding). Of
course, for those of you who thought that muni-WiFi would give consumers
an alternate provider, offering real competition to the incumbent
telco... well, that doesn't really work so well when that alternate
provider is the telco itself.
--
Regards,
Peter
RAD-INFO, Inc. - NSP Strategist
We Help ISPs Connect & Communicate
813.963.5884
http://4isps.com/newsletter.htm
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