Many WISPs have been too busy trashing the Muni-WiFi concept to look at
the opportunities. Who can blame AT&T for taking advantage when most
WISPs turned up their noses. It is not too late for WISPs to get a
foothold in the Muni-WiFi arena if they try. Turning up their noses at
the idea will not win them any contracts though. The most important
thing to understand is that getting access to light poles and electrical
power is golden. The street light based wireless broadband platform will
change over time. Eventually a platform will emerge that will work well.
There are many people who are aggressively making headway toward
building real carrier class wireless broadband operating off of street
lights. I have 4 nodes being installed on street lights this morning. I
see a day when these nodes will have GigE backhaul capacity with
redundant paths all through the air. WiMAX distribution to homes and
businesses will be the norm. This is going to happen.
Scriv
Peter R. wrote:
http://techdirt.com/articles/20060829/190813.shtml
Ma Bell's About Face On Muni-WiFi
from the /is-that-about-face,-or-just-two-faced?/ dept
Remember the good old days of... well, last year, when telcos were
telcos and they absolutely hated muni-WiFi? It was such a huge threat
to their business that they gave Congress people plenty of money to
make it illegal. Of course, that was before they actually bothered
looking at many of the muni-WiFi proposals, and recognized they
weren't really "government-run" at all, but were really no different
than traditional telco deals. The government was simply giving away
rights of way for placing equipment in return for promises of service.
The providers could still be commercial providers with real business
models. Suddenly, the industry opposition quieted down. Industry
associations claimed that muni-WiFi was great... and AT&T (whose
former employee introduced the bill to ban muni-WiFi) was seen
providing the very same "free, tax-supported" WiFi they had screamed
about just months before. Well, congrats to AT&T for all that hard
work trying to stop muni-WiFi. You've just won another muni-WiFi deal
(this one without taxpayer funding). Of course, for those of you who
thought that muni-WiFi would give consumers an alternate provider,
offering real competition to the incumbent telco... well, that doesn't
really work so well when that alternate provider is the telco itself.
--
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