To all WISPA members and interested parties,
I am writing this as a member of WISPA and as a WISP who is concerned about the upcoming Broadband Stimulus Legislation that is moving through Congress as I speak. I feel that it is imperative that we as a group work diligently to lobby our congressmen on the abilities of WISPs to meet the Broadband Deployment Issues at hand. There is a large amount of funding that will be made available for Broadband Providers to extend their networks. We need to speak up and be heard NOW or we may not have access to this funding in the process of awarding Grants and Loan Programs. To do this, we need to hire representation as a group to make sure our interests are heard as this policy and procedure is defined. We have received a quote from Steve Coran, Rini-Coran and Mercury Strategies to represent WISPA for three months for a fee of $30,000. I have attached this proposal for your review. The Board has this proposal under consideration and Tom DeReggi is heading the Legislative Committee to work directly with Rini-Coran and Mercury through this process. Our concern as a board is that this fee on top of the fees incurred for the TV Whitespaces work that Rini-Coran is doing for us will rapidly deplete our financial resources. However, it is very valuable work that needs to be done to insure that the WISP industry has a future. Our dilemma is that we need to raise additional funding from our members to insure that WISPA can still exist and remain a meaningful Association to represent your interests as this Broadband push continues in the future. I am seeking voluntary donations from individual operators and Vendors to assist in making this happen. We have always kept dues low to make sure we included even the smallest WISPs but our fees do not allow us to have the resources to lobby the way we should. We will publicly post the company names of those who donate to this cause and I am seeking suggestions on how we can compensate those who donate with some sort of preferential treatment in the process of obtaining grant writing resources and prioritizing those grant applications in the work flow in good measure for your donation. This is a very resourceful group of operators and I encourage your participation in deriving this plan. WISPA is growing daily in membership and respect amongst the telecommunications industry. With a new website on the way, potential costs of Association Management, TV Whitespaces Lobbying efforts, US Broadband Coalition strategy and other upcoming expenses, I see no choice but to bring this to the membership for input and review. We are on the verge of doing something to insure our placement in the future. We all need to help one another. If you would like to speak to me directly, please call me at 260-827-2482. I prefer email but will speak to anyone, time allowing that would like to talk. Respectfully, Rick Harnish President WISPA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: [email protected] Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
