Please join me in welcoming Ted Olson of OACYS Technology as WISPA's
newest Principal Member. Here is a little about Ted and his company:
OACYS (pronounced as in "oasis") turned 25 this year, I founded it in
1982 after many years as a military and commercial helicopter pilot.
There's no connection, except for maybe an odd sense of adventure and a
certain lack of good sense. We worked from CP/M to DOS and Windows and
networks and software development, then in 1995 bought some bandwidth
and a case of modems and became an ISP, the first in our semi-rural
community of about 30K then (now 50K).
In the late 90s we tangled with PacBell over the privilege of reselling
their DSL. We're a charter member of CISPA and spent quite a bit of
money on that battle, until I got fed up and decided that anything
further in that direction was going to be a very bumpy road that would
eventually turn into a dead-end.
We're pretty independent sorts so we took a deep breath, white-boarded a
new game plan, and turned exclusively to wireless. Never looked back.
Karlnet stuff first, now mostly Trango in all the usual unlicensed bands.
I was chairman of CISPA's first wireless committee, but got way too busy
with our own business to have enough time to do that justice so I passed
the baton. We're still members, but with only a few (and far between)
wireless exceptions that group is still fighting the DSL battle so we
don't really participate any more. I just posted a reference to WISPA in
reply to a couple of enquiries on their list about 700 MHz, maybe you'll
pick up another new member or two.
We cover around 2,500 square miles of mostly rural area at the base of
the Sierra Nevadas, and also up into several small foothill and mountain
valleys that may never be served by DSL or cable. Wouldn't matter to us
anyway, we own those markets now and our service is so good we'd be very
hard to unseat.
We have a dozen employees averaging close to ten years each, and around
2000 subs (60-40% residential and business). Our only wireless
competition is Clearwire, but they're not affecting our business (they
may be helping) and our growth is steady.
Our CLEC application is now going through the approval process at CPUC.
We've started selling VoIP (Asterisk box) and now need the advantages of
a CLEC, previously it wasn't worth the cost.
We've been aware of WISPA for a long time, but it was a recent article
about CALEA that got us thinking we should probably join. I've been
lurking in your mail list for a while, just to see what's going on ...
we might be interested in supporting your 700 MHz efforts. We've of
course been filing 477s for several years.
Unfortunately for us there are apparently enough small cities elsewhere
in our county to disqualify our CMA (150) as being rural. The extra 20%
would have been nice but it's not really a deterrent, providing I can
get some idea of what a realistic bid might be from our perspective. It
looks like the average award in Auction 66 went for around $12 million,
which would be WAY out of our reach.
I'd like to know more about your previous experience with FCC auctions.
That alone makes it worthwhile to join and help support your committee
and lobbying efforts, is that still open at $1000? Our time is limited
(just like yours), but we'll help as much as we can.
Cheers,
-Ted
**** Note to Ted and others from Scriv****
I have extended the $1000 to join the 700 MHz Committee for a bit
longer. I am guessing this deal will go away for goos in a couple of
weeks though. If you are on the fence for getting into the 70 MHz
efforts hen please join now by sending your check for $1000 to:
WISPA
Attn: 700 MHz Committee
PO Box 1582
Mt. Vernon, IL. 62864
We appreciate your WISPA support whether you have an interest in 700 MHz
or not. That goes for all of you out there who support WISPA. A big
thank you to all. Back to you Ted. Scriv
Ted Olson
President and CEO
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
OACYS Technology
767 North Porter Road
Porterville, CA 93257
559.781.4123
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