----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Koskenmaki" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 1:08 PM
Subject: Re: [WISPA] Open Meeting on 700 MHz
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack Unger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "WISPA General List" <wireless@wispa.org>
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.
Mark, we're in complete agreement. I wrote this very same message in my own
reply to Jack.
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.
Here's where we disagree. Wireless policy cannot be anarchistic (my term
... you always use the terms" free market") as you advocate. For industries
where what "I" choose to do doesn't impact "your" choices, no problem.
Wireless DOES NOT FIT in this class (many other industries don't fit as
well, completely unrelated to wireless). Your FREEDOM impacts MY choices.
Government policy MUST regulate wireless industries for the public good.
Study some history of various industries (not restricted to just wireless)
and you will find that lack of government "guidance" / or bad government
guidance (read: lack of vitally needed regulation) hurts everyone. We've
had previous threads where we respectfully disagree on this. You see free
market as the best for everyone, and I know how painfully untrue this often
is. Do you really truly believe that everyone always benefits from your
having "no restriction" whatsoever on what you choose to do? I respect your
opinions immensely but I just can't help believe that deep down you know
from your own career experiences that this has never really been true under
all circumstances. But then again, a lot of people in Wash/Ore apparently
seem willing to believe this fantasy.
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.
Government is not the source and stem of all evil. Thinking in competitive
free market terms, we have a fairly good government compared to most which
are much worse. That doesn't make it the perfect, and money/power is the
evil. I agree with Jack on this. Money/power/influence are the things that
make government act against the best interests of the country ... it's not
government itself that's the source of evil.
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???).
Disagreeing with everything "government" is not the way to influence
anything. The wispa board is right on this one. Support what is good, and
resist what is bad. But most importantly do it from within the framework of
working within the system. Those that opine that everything government is
bad wield no influence as they're ignored out-of-hand.
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.
No, it's the money which equates to influence in our government system. The
government's power is not the evil in this country. You're in the wireless
industry. Were you in the automobile industry I presume you'd rail against
any mandatory requirement that government required. Would you make cars
without lights, signals, emission control, mirrors, seat-belts, etc.? Would
you really argue that all these mandatory requirements are government
opression and that the industry and citizenry would be served better by
allowing you to build whatever kind of automobile you felt like? Maybe you
do, but I'm guessing as an intelligent guy that you don't.
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.
Government is not inherently evil. Ours is better than most. Work within
the system and try to make things better.
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.
If you want to lead a revolt to limit certain government powers & policies,
if I agree with your advocacy positions I'll be with you. I think wispa
would too. But if you just think government is evil by nature and society
should resist all government controls then nobody credible will stand with
you.
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
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