I agree Mark's post was extremely well said, and insightful. To me, it's like Yellowstone wildlife management. Once it became a national park the park management (people) said "we need to manage the wildlife." They did this, then 10 years later they did that, then 10 years later they did something else, etc. All the while it was painfully obvious that it was unnecessary for "people" to manage natural wildlife. Yet they continued, each policy meant to repair or undo the damage of the previous one. I immensely enjoy the programs that reflect back on 100 years of park management that look a tale of one one blunder after another ... everything they seek to fix were problems they created.
The underlying truth is that many things "like a free marketplace" operate quite fine when left alone. Once "people" (read: government) interferes they sometimes cannot help but be disruptive by "whatever" they do ... because intruding was never the right thing to do in the first place. I think the basic need to intrude in the broadband marketplace stems from a long line of federal government intrusion into telecommunications 30 years ago, and it's yet to do anything for the citizenry of our country that hasn't been harmful (all the way back to Judge Green). But that's as far as I go feeling gov should butt out. I'm a strong advocate that gov should set standards for interoperability for each band for the public good of the citizenry of our country. So I'm not anti-gov, just feel in some areas "like trying to manage industries" they should excuse themselves ... forever. But gov does do many important things for us all, and I believe the FCC has an absolutely vital role to perform. I just wish they would do better where I think they bear a responsibility, and abandon meddling where I think they shouldn't have ever interfered. Rich ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Harnish To: 'WISPA General List' Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 10:38 AM Subject: RE: [WISPA] FCC Admits Mistakes In Measuring Broadband Competition Mark, This was one of the best emails you have ever written IMHO. At 3070 words, it must have taken you all night to write, but I appreciate the time you put into it and your opinions are well stated. I believe this is a must read for anyone wanting to get a real-life picture of our industry and it's challenges. There is definitely room for more radical views to be heard. I'm sure others will disagree or dispute some of the opinions you have stated but that's ok. This will create some great discussion. As a board member of WISPA, it is our duty to reflect and consider all opinions of the members of our association. We need to weigh all opinions and guide policy direction as the majority sees fit. While we may not always take your side in some matters, we do so in what we interpret as the best course for the future of the industry. Does that mean we don't listen? Heavens no! This is the great part of group efforts, molding peoples ideas into a negotiated platform that is livable by as many of us as possible would be our necessary goal. It is a balancing act sometimes to represent the membership while maintaining a respectful front with the FCC and legislators who have the power to make the laws and policies which police our industry. WISPA can be radical at times, but we also need to temper our views somewhat to maintain a respectful image with those who make the decisions. Again, I appreciate your comments! Rick Harnish President OnlyInternet Broadband & Wireless, Inc. 260-827-2482 Founding Member of WISPA -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Koskenmaki Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2007 4:14 AM To: WISPA General List Subject: Re: [WISPA] FCC Admits Mistakes In Measuring Broadband Competition Of coures it's flawed. That's like saying that if anyone within zipcode xxxxx has a newly paved street in front of their home, then everyone in zip code xxxxx has the same. I don't offer service via zip code. I offer service via where my signal reaches. And, I've even made a few little interesting things to get service where it DOES NOT reach. Or...well, it didn't at first. The presumption that every who has broadband available will buy it is... absurd. We all know that. I know people who won't even pay for dialup. The question is, why do we want to know? I can think of business reasons why I'd want to know. But why would the mayor of my town, for instance, want to know? What public purpose would be served by expending resources to find out? None, that I can actually think of. Even nationally, the SAME ANSWER applies. There is no actual need OF ANY KIND to know "the number". If 27 percent of the population has broadband available, is there some kind of crisis? What if it's 80%? what if it's 99.776 %? The answer is, THE NUMBER DOES NOT MATTER. Once you realize this fundamental truth, then we can get beyond this, and start to make coherent and logical analysis of what's going on, and what, if anything, should be done about it. First, to get a clear-eyed perspective, let's look at something that's an indisputable "need". Food. Is there anywhere in this country you can't buy food? ( Yeah, I know, try going to out eat in Odessa, it's a constraining experience) If you know of any town where the people cannot, without extreme difficulty obtain food, I'd love to hear of it. So, let me ask you... Is the ubiquitous availability of commodity food due to government policy? Was a large government initiative required to get grocery stores available throughout our nation? Did the USDA and other agencies create programs to fund the creation of grocery stores throughout the country? Did Congress address the lack of grocery stores repeatedly until it was solved? The negative answers to all those somewhat silly questions is kind of obvious. Whereever people wanted to live, there was a demand for a place to buy at least the staples and someone filled that need, often more than a single someone, and they competed for the customer. So, why is the FCC and Congress in a dither about where broadband is available? If people want it, it will come. Just like grocery stores. If it won't, then the real question of consequence is... WHY? Is it not economically feasible? If not, why not? Is it physically not feasible? If not, why not? Is the actual demand enough to sustain the mechanism to provide the service? (you mean they might not want it? Yeah... they might not!) Then, finally, what artificial obstructions exist to providing broadband? Let me state some of the issues that the above questions begin to relate to... "economically feasible", to start with. What are the main problems that occur money-wise when attempting to bring broadband to an unserved area, or make it financially unworkable? Gee, a good lot of you have done it, me included. What about we collaborate a bit and summarize those obstacles we found and overcame? This would be a good topic for someone to lead a thread on for a while. Physical issues. I met an ISP in Idaho who built a backbone over 2 mountains. He had to go something like 60 to 80 miles to find a location where he c ould get hooked up. Impressive effort, to say the least. What about some eastern and southern areas that are nothing but solid trees? What physical barriers exist to deliver broadband via physical medium (fiber, copper, etc)? How many of us, me included, built a network because our gut said we had a market? Can I see a show of hands? How did we decide that our market was large enough to sustain the size and expense we incurred? Howw many were dramatically wrong in that assumption - in either direction? Lastly, what artificial barriers exist? I have a rather large list of my own, and somehow I'll bet you people can dwarf what I've observed. Let's do this list style. The only connectivity available is through a phone company, and they can price you into the realm of non-workabilty. I have two towns in my market that have specifically enacted regulations to PREVENT any further wireless OR WIRED "telecommunications services" from being deployed. That is, they have claimed control over all rights of way and the "air" within their town. No towers, no rooftops, no pole to pole, no underground, NOTHING may be deployed in these towns without going through a process which is carefully calculated to cost a LOT of money the outcome is almost gauranteed to be negative. If the citizens don't object, then they have built in mechanisms to cost unlimited sums of money and unlimited delays at the whim of the any of the city officials. The codes start out with "we believe our town to be more than adequately served by telecommunications services, and so to protect our citizens and town, we....blah blah blah." I kid you not. Another is the federal ownership of land. No federal land is usable for wireless broadband. Period. Not unless you for some reason have millions of dollars and a whole army of lawyers on retainer, will you ever succeed in obtaining the use of public land to provide services to the public. The USFS guys explained the process to me to use USFS land, and it's simply idiotic. It can't be done. The threats of the federal government. CALEA being just tjhe apparent tip of the iceburg. You'd have to be a complete imbecile to think of getting into the WISP business right now. I'm beginning to think it's getting more stupid by the day to remain. I figure I'll just stay at it as long as I can and hide my assets offshore. Basically, since every ISP organization appears to be advocating devastating regulation upon all networks, there's nobody left to defend the actual ISP's from what appears to be an applauded and asked-for "culling of the herd". We can survive competition from cable, telephone, even licensed WISP operations. No problem. But we cannnot survive the completely uncaring and capricious hand of the federal or state government. It is the only 100% lethal item in this list. Creativity can get you around almost every other obstruction or difficulty. Government can't be gotten around. It is proactively lethal. Someone on the list has been repeatedly complaining about the small percentage of wisp's that apparently file form 477. The statement was "they won't be happy" when referring to the overreaching regulator do-gooders. There are only two choices: Either private enterprise fills the needs, like grocery stores do... Or government takes over and "takes care of us" like they did with the telephone co monopoly way back when. There is no "middle ground". For decades we paid absurdly high costs for phone services, and "innovation" and "change" did not even exist. Either we become ardent, vocal, and so persistent in our defense, insisting upon keeping free enteprise alive and the regulators the hell away... or we give up and admit that we prefer monopolies. Name for me ANY regulated industry vibrant with new small businesses and rapid innovation. It does NOT exist. It consolidates until we're in a monopoly. That's where TV, Radio, Cellular, even copper POTS service is headed without intervention. Even with intervention it becomes a calcified, unchanging and certainly non-innovative industry. Either we defend ourselves, and we defend the "cowboys" as Peter likes to call people like me by rising in opposition to ANY regulatory garbage that puts us under their thumb... Or we've just killed our whole industry, because it will cease to be the free market and just become yet another pigeonholed and protected monopoly status.. .and not a one of us will be that "monopoly". Just 3 years ago, when I was about to embark on this dreamquest I call my business, every ONE of the list participants on every one of the lists i was one, was adamant that our uniqueness and our ability to do what had not been done, and to serve those not being served, was because we had no limits. Because we were free and open and unrestrained. We recognized that our industry, OUR profession was not limited and could succeed precisely because we had no gatekeeper and referee creating and enforcing someone else's rules on our game. We had a unique focus on creating our own last mile, and were undaunted in our efforts because those who lacked the guts to go where no ISP had gone before were NOT in our business. We were, as someone likes to disparagingly refer to the vast majority of us "Cowboys". We WERE 100% "cowboys" because they are the pioneers. They are the ones who break the molds and do what hadn't been done. What on earth are we doing when we silently tolerate the disparaging of "cowboys"? Either these "Cowboys" continue to pop up in greater numbers and more and more places to serve whom otherwise won't be served... or we're dead as an industry. Now let's imagine that Lonerock, Oregon experiences a population boom. In fact, due to the wonderful clean air, temperate climate, lack of crime, and overall attractiveness of this town... (here it is, in real life! http://neofast.net/users/mark/pics/lonerockvalley.jpg ) A lot of new residents move in and build homes, eventually they start a little school back up, and one day a relatively young retiree shows up and polls a bunch of people in town "do you want a small grocery store... if one was here, what would you want in it?" Except for the 4 old soreheads at the far edge of town, everyone sees the value in having a store locally. In fact, having one just might encourage a bit more stability to town. So, he applies to the recently incorporated town for a building permit and a business license. After much discussion, he's called in to face the mayor and city council. "We're prepared to entertain granting your permits, but before you do, we have a list of demands. We want to be assured that you'll carry a wide array of brands of products. We want to be sure that you'll reinvest in our community with the profits. We want assurances from you that your prices will be low, quality high, and that you'll be open seven days a week and at least till 10 pm and open by 7 am. And lastly, it's very important to us that you'll agree to install the climate control equipment we want in your s tore so that your customers are comfortable all year around, and that it's well lit to our requirements and we also want you to pay for and get a liquor license too, and make sure you're well stocked with a list of products we wish you to carry. And lastly, since everyone will be shopping there, we want you to photograph everyone and carry thier information and image in a database to help us should there ever be any law enforcement required in our town." The retiree looks over the men behind the desk and tables and mumbles something to himself. He takes the pages long list of demands and requirements and goes home. Sitting at his desk that night, he figures out the costs involved and the demands on his time. The next day he stops in at the mayor's office and drops a letter on the desk and walks out. Later that afternoon, he makes a number of phone calls and a week later a "For Sale" sign appears on his home. The town council is stunned at the letter. It says simply "I withdraw my applications for business license and building permit". The news leaks out... Rather, it explodes. The city council meeting is innundated with the townspeople standing up and asking "Why aren't we going to have a store?" To which the mayor answers "I don't know, we really need one and we encouraged him to open one up". Yeah, I know, the story's a bit crude and silly. But the point is inescapable. And it's on topic. The FCC recognizes that it's mechanism for justifying it's policy decisions suck. Why? Because the whole pursuit of the number in the first place is pointless. No matter WHAT number the FCC arrives at, and by what method... It cannot escape criticism of it's policies. If the FCC wants to justify what it does... or perhaps more accurately, make a cogent arguement for cogent policies, then the number becomes irrelevant, as does form 477, OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF POINTLESS PAPERWORK. Instead, WE should be telling the FCC what our hurdles to deployment are, and that placing roadblocks like CALEA in the way will only serve to STIFLE deployment. The FCC and the feds need to stop acting like the mythical town council I wrote about if it wishes to have people set up shop and provide service. It needs to clear every roadblock it can that is created intentionally or unintentionally by federal regulation or ownership or rules or law. Because like grocery stores, WISP's should be in every town, in every community, in every county, in every state, in the whole nation. And the only way that's going to happen, is if every possible business model, including the guy who does it as a hobby, or the retiree who happens to be bored and want to find something productive to do, or the computer store owner who needs his own connection... or a couple of part time partners... or an angel investor and a couple network whiz types... or a group of professional businessmen and a venture capital type get to gether and work out something that works, and the people get served should be viable. Someone asked me why I decided to wireless... specifically why wireless to offer broadband. I answered this way: "Because I can". There was no toll booth set up by someone else to pay to get into the business. There was nobody standing there with a list of demands to get a license to do it. Even then, it took me 5 years to find a way to do it in a way that would be viable for me and my limited financial means. If the FCC is actually serious, if Congress is actually serious... and if WISPA is actually serious... about addressing how widely broadband is both available and adopted... then what REALLY has to be addressed, is this: If broadband is not available, what is the obstruction ,and how can it be cleared? And we need to address it. We need to address EVERYTHING, from how difficult it is to raise capital, to archaic and absurd part 15 certification regulations, to the physical federal and state land barriers since it's so hard to get to use them. Further, we need to address the tools we need to truly become "ubiquitous". The only people who care about "the number", whatever that magical number is, are advocates of something... be it regulation, be it money spending they want to come their way, be it governmental intervention or even socializing the internet provision industry, or even just plain old pork barrell spending, "the number" serves no practical purpose in advancing real deployment and coverage. The only way to get at the heart of the mattter, is to study the people...find who does, who does not, and then find out WHY. Do they not care? Maybe they don't want it. Maybe they aren't willing to pay for it. Maybe they have no use for it! Maybe nobody will offer service. If not, WHY NOT? And then comprehensively address those issues of why one of us cowboys will not go there. Because if we won't, then nobody will, unless they're bribed with public money, to do what nobody sensible would do. There should not be 6000 of us. Not even 12,000 of us. There should be at least 20,000 and more appropriately, 50,000 of us. We should be like the grocery store. One or more for every town. If we do, WE WILL have the clout in DC to get heard. But unless we defend our industry against imposed gatekeepers, toll booths and whatever other kind of barrier to entry and continuation, we have already lost the battle without ever having even reached the fight. Like it or not, WE HAVE THE ANSWERS the FCC is looking for. But we're stuck on playing little political games. Darnit, WE ARE ALREADY THE LEADERS, because we're going out and doin what should be done in the first place. The fact that they are only recently aware of even our EXISTENCE, much less the true power of free enterprise we can wield in advancing our nation is a monument sized explanation of just how out of touch and isolated Washington DC is from where the rubber meets the road. We should not shrink from boldly standing up for both what is right, and PROUDLY ADVOCATING FOR OUR BEST INTEREST. Not just "making the toll bearable" or "trying to make sure they don't kill too many of us", not meekly going to them, hat in hand, hoping for "status" in DC. That's not leadership. That's followship. And it's our death if we do it. There. I've ranted again. Somehow, I feel like I haven't done it near enough. The definition of a fanatic, some say, is that they not only have opinions on something, but that they won't shut up about it. Are we fanatics for our industry and ourselves... or just mere passive players? Mark ----- Original Message ----- From: "Justin S. Wilson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <wireless@wispa.org> Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 5:52 AM Subject: [WISPA] FCC Admits Mistakes In Measuring Broadband Competition > Found this on Slashdot > > "For years, plenty of folks (including the Government Accountability Office) > have been pointing out that the way the FCC > <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070205/165735.shtml> measures broadband > competition is very flawed. It simply assumes that if a single household in > a zip code is offered broadband by provider A, then every household in that > zip code can get broadband from provider A. See the problem? For some reason > the FCC still hasn't changed its ways, but at least they're starting to > realize the problem. They're now saying they need to change > <http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2115154,00.asp> the way they measure > competition. Commissioner Michael Copps points out: 'Our statistical > methodology seems almost calculated to obscure just how far > <http://techdirt.com/articles/20070418/143208.shtml> our country is falling > behind many other industrialized nations in broadband availability, > adoption, speed and price.'" > > > > > > -- > WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org > > Subscribe/Unsubscribe: > http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless > > Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/
