----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Unger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "WISPA General List" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 9:17 AM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Open Meeting on 700 MHz
> John, > > Regarding your comment: > > "Enabling thousands of new bustling and growing > entrepreneurs to build local wireless communication broadband companies > is the smartest thing they could do which is why they will not do it." > > > Yes, creating and supporting new entrepreneurs is what government > "should" do but our government has become corrupted (there, I did it... > I uttered the "C word") by the big money from large, entrenched, > politically-connected corporations. By providing large political > campaign contributions and gifts (like trips on corporate jets) large > corporations now control how new laws are written and how existing laws > are enforced. It should be no surprise that new laws are written to > benefit large corporations. But Jack, this is problem is more than 200 years old in the US. In fact, people with money have been influencing government for... well, as long as there has been money and governments. > > Back when I was a child (in the 50's) I was taught and I believed that > the job of government was to "do the greatest good for the greatest > number of people". Today, that's changed. Now, it's my impression that > our government writes laws to benefit those who contribute the most > money to political parties. In the last few years, there are examples of > bills that were actually written directly by large, > politically-connected corporations, delivered to Congress, voted on and > passed into law. Because laws written today fail to benefit the majority > of the people, our real economy is going downhill. Our economy has thrived IN SPITE OF GOVERNMENT for as long as our nation has existed. It has and always be so. There are many things that could be done to limit the damage, but few of us ever support those things. > > Our government prints billions of new dollars each month (millions of > dollars each day) but these dollars are not being circulated in our > real-world, local-businesses economy. These dollars are circulated on > Wall Street. These dollars are circulated between our government and > large corporations. These dollars are circulated between foreign central > banks in countries outside the U.S. > > Now that I've framed the problem (political corruption), I have an > obligation to do more than just complain. I have an obligation to > outline the solution. The solution is to take the money out of politics. > Allow all candidates to campaign with an small but equal amount of > public money (our money). Remember, the job of politicians is to write > the laws that govern our country. By taking the large-corporation money > out of politics, politicians will be reminded each day who they are > supposed to be working for... they're supposed to be working for "us". No, Jack, this only gaurantees that the famous, the incumbents... these will get elected and re-elected. All this does is limit the power of those NOT in power to speak to the people. Every time someone tries to limit this, it further calcifies the power in place and people already into power. Money is not the problem. The problem is that we have allowed goverment to do everything for us, and we don't insist it stop. Poll this list, and you'll find a lot of people want the government to take over EVEN MORE parts of our economy than they have already. Health care being one. Gee, we whine and moan that government is intrenched into everything and plays favorites with those who give it money, and then we start talking about giving it EVEN MORE control and power. If money is EVER the problem... It's that the government has too much already. It has so much it can and does use it to pry into and then thinks it can "solve" with it's money, every so-called "problem", be it people unwilling to budget their money to pay the doctor, or whiny snobs who snivel about how slow the public adopts broadband. And the FCC's motivation to rake in the money is why spectrum is so terribly badly allocated. And as soon as government sets itself in charge of something... then EVERYONE is at ther door trying to find ways to get the government to direct favor in their way. The question is: Where does this leave us? My God, do I have to sound like a broken record? We need to have been telling the FCC that impediments to entry into the wireless broadband business are wrong. Be they CALEA mandates, spectrum auction stupidness, or regulations concerning the use of public land. We HAVE to be the broken record... the squeaky wheel... We haven't money or huge numbers... but we can be LOUD. And we should be consistent, with the message that THIS TIME, "economies of scale" are not the salvation for reaching the people, but DIVERSITY, that is, a dynamic industry filled with everything from mom-and-pop garage based sharing schemes to bit multi-state operators is THE key to ubiquitous broadband. Due to their nature, the telcos, and the cable ops are NEVER going to make it so, but we can fill in the rest... or close enough to it to count. We need to be telling them and doin so coherently, with reasoned words and unarguable logic, that they hold the key, and the key is free enterprise, using the public's own spectrum, not something owned by someone too big to care about the individual customer. To a degree I fault myself. I have taken the time to file comments to the FCC, and have seen some of my comments almost mirrored word for word in some of thier published documents. But that's nothing to brag about. Apparently they agreed with me. But I have not filed nearly as often as I should have. Partly because I don't know the impacts, nor the meaning of some of the things going on...and some I flat knew nothing about. Some... I just couldn't dream up anything to say (imagine that???). But HOW MANY OF YOU have spoken up to the FCC in defense of our industry? And I say this from the POV of a small operator who does what no big operator would dream of doing... > "Us" is not large corporations. "Us" is real-world, middle-class, > grass-roots, local-entrepreneur, working people. By taking the > large-corporation, big-money factor out of politics, government will > once again write laws that bring "the greatest good to the greatest > number of people". The FCC will then promote policies that truly build, > benefit and support local economies. Jack, I love the idea, but I think you're dead wrong. It's not the candidate's money... It's the power they get to wield AFTER THEY ARE ELECTED, and the money they have avialable to spend, that gets them to be the focus of so many atttempts to influence. After all, if they could neither destroy NOR make any industry, then why would industry bother to fund them, bribe them, or "influence" them? Much of what goes on in DC has turned into what Rush Limbaugh calls "Protection Money", where you must hire lobbyists and spread around millions defensively, just to avoid being the target. Politically, we ARE at an advantage, because none of us are trans-national corporations ( the modern day equivalent of demons, the devil incarnate, and the guy with the black robe and scythe), we're not "the target" to destroy. Frankly, I don't share the view that they are, either. But, that's just pop culture for you. It takes a societal change before this can happen. The people have to stop demanding everyting be controlled, everything stop being given them, that government not be our nanny. Good luck on that one. We've a whole political party dedicated to nannyism, and the other one's not much better. But that's politics. This isn't a political list. We're not here to change the world.. but we could enlighten our own tiny little corner of it. > > jack > > > John Scrivner wrote: > > > > > > Travis Johnson wrote: > > > >> John, > >> > >> This is just my opinion, but I seriously doubt the FCC is just going > >> to "give" away 700MHz licenses, even on a per base station basis. > > > > I never said they should "give" it to us. I said they should have base > > station sized auctions. They can include an opening bid amount. They > > always do. > > > >> And the WISP community is not going to spend even $5,000 per license > >> if they could. > > > > I would spend $20K+ per base station license. I am not kidding. I would > > do it in a heartbeat because I could make it back in one year alone from > > not having to tell people NO when we could not get them signal. > > > >> The cell companies will be bidding, and once again it will be in the > >> millions of dollars per region. > > > > It is like farm ground. We are the farmers. None of us can farm if we > > have to buy a million square acres of ground to farm. It is not fair. It > > is exactly the same correlation and the FCC needs to hear it. (And > > understand it which is a big stretch for them) > > > >> > >> Honestly, what would you do if you were the FCC? Deal with hundreds or > >> thousands of little operators at $5,000 per license, or sell 3 or 4 > >> licenses for the entire US for millions of dollars? > > > > It is NOT about what is easier for them. It is a matter of what is best > > for the country. Enabling thousands of new bustling and growing > > entrepreneurs to build local wireless communication broadband companies > > is the smartest thing they could do which is why they will not do it. > > Scriv > > > >> > >> Travis > >> Microserv > >> > >> John Scrivner wrote: > >> > >>> Apparently there is a meeting scheduled today, April 25, at the FCC > >>> over how the 700 MHz band is going to be split up for auction. It > >>> amazes me how we can be kept in the dark about these meetings. If > >>> anyone can tell me how to get included on announcements of such > >>> meetings I need to know about it. This really angers me that we are > >>> not there with some representation today. If anyone reads this who is > >>> near the DC area please go to this meeting and tell them we need > >>> spectrum to be made available on a base station license basis. They > >>> need to auction off individual base station licenses or reserve some > >>> for a flat fee so all of us can compete. If they do not then hundreds > >>> if not thousands of operators who are now serving rural broadband > >>> will not be able to compete. This is an anti-competitive problem that > >>> the FCC needs to address with this auction. This is a big deal. If we > >>> do not get some 700 MHz or similar sub- 1 GHz spectrum it is going to > >>> be very bad for us all. > >>> Scriv > >>> > > -- > Jack Unger ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) - President, Ask-Wi.Com, Inc. > FCC License # PG-12-25133 > Serving the Broadband Wireless Industry Since 1993 > Author of the WISP Handbook - "Deploying License-Free Wireless WANs" > True Vendor-Neutral Wireless Consulting-Training-Troubleshooting > FCC Part 15 Certification Assistance for Wireless Service Providers > Phone (VoIP Over Broadband Wireless) 818-227-4220 www.ask-wi.com > > > -- > WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
