> Tom: There no reason on earth that the exception must create the rule. > If Alaska wants subsidized phone service, then Alaska can frankly do it on > its own. Any objections? Having been to Alaska, a few parts of it, > and > observed the function of the incumbent telco, I have completely ZERO > sympathy for anyone who says that GCI, et al, is desperately in need of > massive federal bailouts/subsidies/funding. They have complete > monopolistic control of just about every byte of TCP/IP traffic, every > phone > call, and every text message in the vast majority of the state, a position > beaurocratically ensured for the next eon, by many factors. There is > no > reason on earth to use Alaska as a template for tax, communications, or > any > other policy anywhere else in the other 48 states. > Allthough those arguements can be made, none-the-less, I'd recommend speaking to an Alaskan Congressman, and man will you get a convincing story telling you other wise. And they are good at telling their soapbox story. Resistane will be found here, and the politics to follow. Thats all I'm really saying.
> 3) Rural America needs better mobile phone coverage. Subsidees are needed, > > Sure. Let's let the market do it. Want to know how? I have the > perfect idea, and NO subsidy is needed at all... AT ALL. Keep reading. Although I'm for the market to work it out, after all I live in an areas where the market is strong, But again there will be resistence to "just let the market work it out", for one reason. The topic (communication) is to important for anything but a success, and that needs to be guaranteed, for the good of the nation. Whether money is misused or overspent is a secondary concern. At the end of the day it comes down to America is only as strong as its weakest link, and when all states in America are at their strongest, America as a whole will be stronger. Thats the whole foundation of being a united 50 state America. A strong state can help a weak state on one topic and vice versa on another. For example, what if the Rural Western/Central States said, "we have plenty of food, but its ours, if the East coast Urban cities want to eat, they'll need to build their own farms"? (actually, we have our own farms, this was jsut a hypthothetical example). Many Western/Cemtral Farms are subsidized, to guarantee Food will never be a shortage. Following the arguements to disband USF, would one equally have the opinion that Farms should no longer be subsidized, and if food ran out, oh well, tough luck? It wont be hard to gain acceptance to disband USF for arguements like "its a broken system, outdated system, and there is now a better way", and proving that. But I dont think we'll ever gain acceptance of an arguement similar to "let them take care of their own problem, or leave them on their own at the mercy of the market." >> a >> fund that already exists and does not come from WISP's pcoket, where will >> it >> come from. If mobile is needed, something needs to pay for it. Will >> future > > It isn't needed. Frankly, if we could have some 600 or 700 mhz slices > of > spectrum, with appropriate rules for some channels set aside for the > purpose, we could deploy our own version of "cellular" in small towns Thats the golden issue isn't it. In my young twentie, I used to say, "If I could just live 6 months rent free, I could save my money, and then start a company that would enable me to have a higher fair income, and I'd be able to get out of the pay check to paycheck debt struggle. Thing is... rent wasn't free. There is a cost associated with housing and its a resource in demand controlled by the marklet. I had to face reality, rent isn't free. Its the same thing with wireless, spectrum is a valued resource in short suply, Spectrum isn't free. With that said, we might have that choice anyways. If TV Whitesacpe finally gets released to WISPs, that valuable resource will be free to us. It will be a science project, for the feds to learn if when Spectrum is available does it really enable investment in deployment. The other arguement with spectrum is that it does exist. For example, 2.5Ghz exists all over the country. Who's faught is it if we were not insightfull enough to buy it, when it could be had at the right price, out of auction? I know for a fact some cases where Sprint leased the spectrum licesnes from schools (that owned it) in rural towns for as little as $2000 total for the license period. Not having spectrum will not be a good defense. The answer would just be to give the money and aid to the companies that already have the spectrum and resources to more optimally succeed. Then the problem would be cured, just not by us. As well, the principle behind auctions is taht items will be sold for their true worth, what someone is willing to pay for it. People ar willing to pay a price because they calculate they can get a return at that price, or they wont bid. Again, I dont believe in auctions myself, I'm just saying the arguement is flawed. IF we were given Spectrum Free, we would infact be being "subsidized" and being given a handout. Whether it is money versus spectrum, both have value and both would be subsidees. Giving money atleast is giving something that is a renewable source. Giving Spectrum on the other hand is not a renewable source, and once its given, its gone to those that then have it. > rural areas lacking mobile telephony. Just as long as we don't have to > raise 700 million to own some theoretical right to use a specific > frequency > set. I'm betting that we could actually have a thriving "unlicensed > cellular" industry thriving in 3 years if we had spectrum that was "free" > (we don't pay millions to use). Think what you could do if you could use > a > MIMO type of base station/handset, operating at 600 mhz, using licensed > type > power, with "clean spectrum" type of sensitivity, and the whole thing was > tcp/ip, with the handset doing VOIP over your network, having your own > switching / etc, at your network's edge. All you'd need to do is write > roaming agreements with your neighboring towns and you're set to start > taking away even the POTS lines in your small isolated town. Frankly, > your "tower equipment" could be less than $5k/tower and the cost of the > rest > of the VOIP stuff (not handset) is already known. All we'd need is a > good > mobile MAC for our wireless... ( anyone ever heard that discussion > before?) Yes we'd all love that, but we cant all have it. Thats why spectrum goes to auction :-( I'd rather take a chance with dirty spectrum, that I'd have a chance to gain access to. Hopefully, Whitespace will soon be allocated. > The big costs of sites has less to do with towers, than it has to do with > obtaining the use of the land they sit upon. Most rural communities are > not surrounded by private landowners who think a lease of $300/year is > great > for a plot the size of their shed. Instead, many are surrounded by > state/federal land which is all but perfectly impossible to get to use, > unless you have an army of lawyers, lobbyists, and really deep pockets. > Reason why WISPA lobbied for easier access to federal towers and land, in NBP efforts.. >> Now there is nothing more than I'd like to see is to stop subsidees to >> mobile phone carriers. They have more than enough revenue in urban and >> suburban America to self fund rural America mobility. That is something >> that >> is proveable, jsut by looking at public stock info, and the huge rate of >> growth the industry has had. It doesn;t need help. Whether they have the resources to create their own subsidities is irrelevent. Becaues they answer to investors, they have no motive to spend their money that way. They'll spend it to optimize the ROI. We learned that in WestVirgina, where Verizon pulled out of WestVirginia, and no longer offers Phoen service, until the subsidees were offered, via the grant program. > Naw, how about the use of state or federal land for $500/year and no > $200,000 environmental impact statements needing to be filed? That's > way > more useful than a bunch of cumbersome rules designed to force benefits or > advantages to specific players. Actually, I'd just call that > corruption. Thats fine in areas where federal land is needed. However, I'd argue why not let the market control it? Thats the arguement many are using to disband USF? In my neck of the woods, forcing the feds to give free access to towers/land to new players, could put me out of business. I already have huge investments with private land/real estate owners. For me to get the same assistance, I'd need to eat teh cost to rebuild my network that already works well as is, and profitable. Why make it easier for my competitors to have lower costs? ACtually, the feds are most likely to give access to those federal resources to the Larger mor financiall wealthy players, its easier to do large deals and regulate. With Private owner, each has their own decission process, and gives a more leval playing field for all providers to get a chance to get access to the land. Feds will worry about liabilty, and less liabilty if its a rich telco that leases space. Tom D > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > WISPA Wants You! 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