I disagree. Provisions were made in the grant to enable small providers to be eligible. The reason small carriers will not win many of these these grants is because we forgot to lobby for the most important point. That small providers need more than 30 days to prepare for a grant after the rules are published. Its very unlikely that small providers will have all the resources they need to back their applications with lots of meaningful fact. There just isn't time to develop it. The grant process exposes the weakness of small carriers, that they are stretched thin.
I hope that WISPs that miss round 1, will continue there efforts to Round2. Tom DeReggi RapidDSL & Wireless, Inc IntAirNet- Fixed Wireless Broadband ----- Original Message ----- From: Bret Clark To: WISPA General List Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 3:56 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Grant Sadly this program is not about creating jobs or supporting the small business owner who make up most of the work force in America. Its about expanding broadband and those who pay the most to their lobbyist will likely win the grants. Since Verizon and Comcast pay their lobbyist 6 figure salary's doesn't take much to figure out who will get the lions share of the money. Hopefully some of the little guys will get some money, but I'm not holding my breath. Clearly vendors are the big winners here, but they have no concern about expanding broadband...they only want to sell their products whether used in the middle of a city or the middle of a corn field. Trying not to be cynical, but having dealt with enough government run programs in the past, I've clearly have become a realist when looking at any government run program! Matt Liotta wrote: My two cents is that BIP/BTOP is going to be great for vendors and terrible for WISPs. The vendors don't care who gets awarded the money as long as they sell gear. -Matt On Aug 12, 2009, at 3:39 PM, Blake Bowers wrote: Just an observation. Lots of companies are asking for letters of support from public safety agencies. As Chief of my Fire Department, I have gotten a number of requests in the past week. The really interesting ones are the ones that A. Show no benefit to public safety other than they say broadband will be more available and cheaper. b. Come from companies that are my normal vendors in my business, that are branching out. Now, instead of selling me product so I can make money, they are going to put up their own, so they can compete with me in the leasing world, while they also provide broadband. Hmmmmmmm Don't take your organs to heaven, heaven knows we need them down here! Be an organ donor, sign your donor card today. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.560 / Virus Database: 270.12.26/2116 - Release Date: 5/15/2009 6:16 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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/
