[1st-mile-nm] Freedom To Connect Conference report

[Steve Ross]

The business is tough enough without nutty statements like 
"why isn't the bandwidth the same price everywhere?" It's 
not the same price [duh] because:

1. Some places have competition.
2. The places that HAVE competition tend to be places where 
it is easier/cheaper to build a network or where the 
customers are easier to sell to. Building and selling costs 
money. Really.
3. Some places with state networks (Illinois) had their 
state politicos bought by people in private enterprise who 
said, yes, you can put in a network... and we'll even 
sell/rent the intercity fiber to do it... but not if you 
compete with us."
4. Just because you can build a fiber line to a school 
doesn't mean you can hock up the same fiber to 500 nearby 
houses, free, or even set up a wireless mesh free.

And WiFi provides 1 Mbps, sometimes, for $10 a month (or 
even free in some places). It isn't secure. It isn't 
scalable. Nice amenity. Doesn't solve the core problem. Why 
do otherwise normal, breathing, thinking human beings 
promote WiFi and WiMAX as replacements for real broadband? 
Yes, in some rural areas, WiMAX point to point bridges 
network gaps... and with only a few people sharing one 
radio, they can get 10-20 Mbps with a directional antenna on 
a short jump. We just did a story of one example, Xittel in 
Quebec -- 66% provincial capital subsidy, which is great.

But that's not what they talk about. There are mayors (and 
I've tried to talk to them) who think everyone on a city 
street will get 70 Mbps if they install WiMAX!!!

Why promote such inane stupidity?

Steve Ross

Richard Lowenberg wrote:
> Of relevance to the 1st-Mile Broadband approch:
> 
>>From the web site of the just past Freedom to Connect Conference, March
> 5-6, in Washington, DC.
> 
> http://freedom-to-connect.net/
> 
> This report on Sasha Meinrath's presentation.   (Links to additional
> presentation reports on the F2C site.)
> 
> www.isp-planet.com/fixed_wireless/business/2007/meinrath_f2c.html
> 
> Meinrath Says Everything Else is Stupid
> 
> He's got a pretty good idea based on a simple question: why is bandwidth
> priced differently across the U.S.? Isn't it fungible?
> 
> by Alex Goldman, ISP-Planet Managing Editor
> [March 12, 2007]
> 
> At the Freedom to Connect conference, Sascha Meinrath pitched the next way
> we're going to eliminate the telcos from the upstream. He was talking
> about the CUWiN Foundation (specializing in "Community Wireless
> Solutions"). (It was originally the website of the Champaign-Urbana
> Community Wireless Net.)
> 
> He called the talk: Cooperative Networking (a.k.a everything else is
> stupid).
> 
> He pointed out that a 1 Mbps upstream connection is $10 per month in San
> Francisco, $80 to $90 per month in Chicago, $320 per month in Urbana, and
> over $1,300 per month in a town you've never heard of, Greenup. And a
> $1,500 wireless link can take bandwidth to almost anywhere.
> 
> "But if we had a free market, wouldn't someone bring bandwidth from where
> it's cheap to where it's expensive?"
> 
> It turns out that there is a network connecting all of Illinois, called
> the Illinois Century Network (ICN).
> 
> It could provide cheap bandwidth to schools. "So why isn't it being done?
> Is it technology? Economics? No, it's layer 8 political BS!"
> 
> An attendee understood immediately. "Of course, this network can only be
> used for 'research.' But if we're doing research on how the network gets
> used (by all sorts of people), then all traffic has a research purpose.
> Clever."
> 
> There are plenty of other solutions to network the nation. For example, if
> community broadband becomes sufficiently ubiquitous, the local networks
> could all peer with each other and create a nationwide mesh.
> 
> So will it work? It's all being done on a case by case basis, as
> opportunities present themselves. But we're interested and hope to
> interview Meinrath in the near future as this project progresses.
> 
> In his introduction, Meinrath said, "I'm not about home networking. That's
> not what I do. I'm not talking about the mesh network. I'm talking about
> what's next. The next bandwagon that will eliminate the telcos. The telcos
> hated community networking, but now they're leading the charge. These
> networks are all over the place, but they're not connected to each other,
> and they're still relying on the telcos who hate them."
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------
> Richard Lowenberg
> P.O.Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
> 505-989-9110,  505-603-5200 cell
> rl at radlab.com  	  www.radlab.com
> 
> New Mexico Broadband Initiative
> www.1st-mile.com/newmexico
> ------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
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