Matt, I commend your thoughts, and how you chose to write them. I always admire people who speak clearly, but from the heart.
I would like to add something, or perhaps just explain why I think this industry will never become the domain of a few large players. Our industry requires a dedication to individual service. Many in the beginning wanted a box to plant on the desk, so that NO interaction with the customer was needed. Instead, we serve each customer individually. Our deployments require that we learn and plot our coverage and service in place, on the ground, interacting with local people. There is no large company that can do that. We CARE about our own business, because it IS our own business, and thus, we CARE about our customers, something you cannot ever pay someone to do. The employee who can be paid to care, is indeed...rare. Thus, we have entered an industry with a model based upon the highest ideal of business - that of true service. The flakes will fail, the greedy will fail, only those with a true concern for doing what needs to be done, in return for a modest paycheck will be successful. Some can instill or find that kind of employee to hire, but no HR department will accomplish it. I don't call us heroes... Certainly I am not anyone's hero. I'm a villain, when the power fails at 8 pm on a school night, and everyone's connection dies. But I do my best, and I really, DO care that someone needs and I have the means of meeting it, and so I get up and go out, missing my dinner, to get things back up and going. Any of you on this list who won't do that, you're the exception, not the rule. I can with confidence that you have a passion to do things for other people... And found a way to earn that paycheck... and meet the need. I believe very few of you are in this, solely for the money. And I disagree about our image... It should be a nameless, faceless guy, working out of his truck, doing the job for his neighbor, on a handshake. That's who we are, more than anything else. It's who we should sell ourselves as, and in doing so, gain our customer's loyalty, as we're loyal to them. Our business operations, and our treatment of customers should reflect that, as well. I don't have the answer for the problems in DC. I don't have the answer for how to get Congress and agencies to allow us to do what we know how to do, and have the answers for. I just think we should be on the offensive, not the defensive, and seek to change the nature of the game. BTW, I read your site from time to time, it's quite good. Keep it up. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Neofast, Inc, Making internet easy 541-969-8200 509-386-4589 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From: Matt Larsen - Lists Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2011 11:16 PM To: wireless@wispa.org Subject: Re: [WISPA] Connected Nation Rules Scottie (and all other non-WISPA members on this list) I would like to repost something that I put on the WISPA Members list and on my blog at Wirelesscowboys.com - the WISP Manifesto. I am advocating that we should change our strategies to put together our own numbers, fight government programs that harm our businesses with taxpayer money and show the world that we are heroes to our communities. I would really enjoy commentary from anyone on the list. ML (This email started out as a response to Brian Webster's email and went WAY off on a tangent, so I'm changing the subject - sorry!) Brian, I'm going to disagree with you on a couple of points here. I think that you are mostly right, but you are accepting the framing of the issues as the telcos and politicians want them to be framed. That there is no way that we can win a toe-to-toe slugging match for spectrum, but this is not about a full on, frontal attack. This is guerilla warfare, and the game is played by a completely different set of rules. Think of it from the wisp operator's point of view.. 1) We've been given essentially no spectrum (the junk bands that we use were around long before WISPs were), 2) We get no government subsidies, despite the existence of stimulus and rural development programs for broadband deployment, which actually.. 3) Pours billions of taxpayer dollars into our competition, the same competition that has either delivered low grade broadband or none at all. 4) The USF program allows telcos to impose additional "taxes" on their services to go into a giant government enabled slush fund that goes right back into their systems. 5) RUS only lends to ILECs and will not work with multiple entities in an area 6) We are asked to turn over highly detailed information about our subscriber bases, tower sites and anchor tenants as part of the broadband mapping programs - information that is a FOIA request away from being public knowledge! In many (most) ways, we have little incentive to cooperate with the government. The scale is tilted so far that there is little we can do that will make much of a measurable impact. As an upstanding citizen, and WISPA member, I file my Form477, and I've been working with my state broadband mapping group, and I have supported our FCC lobbying efforts. But I am very frustrated at the lack of substantial progress in our federal and state governments - and I'm ready to look at a different approach. One of the primary reasons for having our coverage areas compiled and better demographics on our industry is because no one has done it right and no one outside of our industry seems to care, and that includes the government. So it is up to us to get it together and deliver it to the public and our potential allies out there. We should be leading with our hearts and our deeds, because we have been doing the tough work of improving broadband conditions in the US with little or no help and a wide array of forces working against us. We should start thinking of ourselves in slightly different terms. In the past, industries like ours have started out with many small companies that are eventually swallowed up by consolidation into a small number of big players. This has happened over and over again with telephone companies, cell carriers, cable and dialup ISPs. I thought it was going to happen with this industry as well, but at this point I don't think it will happen very soon. Especially with Clearwire on the verge of collapse and capital being tied up in the New York casino. In many ways, WISPs work like the Internet, described by one of the blogs (Global Guerillas - http://globalguerillas.typepad.com) I like to follow: "Work like the Internet? Here's what we mean: companies that are highly decentralized, open and egalitarian. This is in contrast to traditional corporate hierarchies that are secretive, centralized, and totalitarian. What's the benefit of this organizational style? We believe these organizations would be much more productive, responsive/agile, innovative, rewarding, socially beneficial, and competitive than all other forms of organization for many business tasks." We might be a herd of cats, but we are agile, innovative, competitive and socially beneficial. Someone at the Broadband Expo show said that WISPA was probably the most egalitarian trade organization he had ever come across, and I took that as a compliment. With these things in mind, I think that we should ponder some slightly different tactics, and think of some out of the box ways to deal with the government - and more importantly the public. With that in mind, I present to you: THE WISP MANIFESTO 1) We should NEVER ask the government for stimulus or any other kind of money. We should be actively lobbying for the government to STOP subsidizing telecom/broadband because it supports untenable business models while wasting taxpayer money. 300 million American taxpayers approve this message. 2) Along those lines, we should advocate the complete disbanding of the USF program. It funds our competition and we are never going to get access to it in any usable fashion anyway 3) We should come up with our own numbers on our industry by surveying our members, compiling as much publicly available information as is available on the net about WISPs that aren't members and working with distributors to help put together meaningful numbers about our industry. And we should broadcast our numbers as loudly and widely as possible 4) We should position ourselves as the solution to Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is about regulating ISP behavior in a monopolistic market. It wouldn't be needed if customers had a choice of competitive providers. If WISPs can provide an alternative for a user who doesn't like cable or telco usage policies, there is less need for legislation to impose conditions on all ISPs. 5) We should push the envelope on innovative uses of spectrum. Back in the 80s, Nextel bought fleet dispatch spectrum rights, and used that spectrum to deploy cellular for a fraction of the cost of buying regular cellular spectrum. They were definitely pushing the envelope - and skirted around several legal obstacles to create something out of nothing. I would imagine that WISPs could come up with some very innovative uses for Clearwire's spectrum after it goes under. Or many of the other pieces of spectrum that are now sitting fallow. The FCC is complaint driven - if no one is using the spectrum, there probably isn't going to be a complaint. And if there is, just consider the fine to be part of the cost of doing business - that is how the big guys look at it when they get fined for anticompetitive behavior! Finally, and most importantly, we need to give ourselves an image makeover. I have been participating in this industry for 12 years now. I have had a chance to travel all over the country and meet hundreds of WISPs. The weaker ones have been sorted out. The snake oil salesmen have moved on to some other group of suckers. The people that are left in this business are making a big difference for a lot of people who would otherwise be out of luck. How many soldiers in Iraq are able to Skype with their loved ones over a WISP connection? How many small towns are now able to retain businesses and residents because a WISP is delivering broadband? How many businesses have been able to escape the telecom billing fraud machine in favor of a WISP? How many jobs have we created in our areas? How much money have we been able to put back into our local communities? How much of a difference have YOU made in the lives of others? We have been working long hours, maxing out our credit cards, climbing towers on frozen winter days, crawling around on rooftops in the blazing summer sun, sacrificing time we could be spending at the lake or beach or with our families to fix a network problem, driving for hours to reboot a radio then turn around again to drive in the other direction to reboot another one, sitting on hold for hours waiting for some moron at the telephone company to fix the T1 connection that THEY messed up in the first place, telling customers that the "No Signal" message on their monitor doesn't mean their Internet doesn't work - it means they need to turn their computer on!, starting our own trade association from scratch and pouring hundreds of hours of volunteer time into it, and all because we want to be able to do good things for our community and hopefully make a living from our labors. We need to let the world know what our employees, customers and communities know.. WISPS are a bunch of f***king HEROES! The revolution starts here. Matt Larsen Vistabeam.com Wirelesscowboys.com PS - $25 to the first person that photoshops John Scrivner's face onto a Che Guevara poster. Our revolution needs an image and a leader, and I volunteer Scriv. On 1/15/2011 9:58 PM, Scottie Arnett wrote: All this bickering reminds me why I have NOT joined WISPA yet. Do not get me wrong, I DO agree with the bickering going on from KY and OH about Connect "whatever state inserted here"! Same as what is happening in TN! In my own opinion, WISPA is trying to play Big boy, with a front for big boy! I have been on the general list for a long time following the steps that WISPA has taken. IN the last few years, my perception is they want to BOW DOWN to the FCC on issues that the Big Boys decide on most issues. They are playing second fiddle to what most of us actually want. We want someone to standup at the FCC and say, "HEY, there are other ISP's besides cable and telephone co's! We are serving as much or more of the digitally divided ppl than the telco's are cable co's ever thought about! Of course we can all pay our $250 or whatever to WISPA and it will all go to Steve Coran! He loves us all for fighting this. The bigger fight, the more he gets paid, whether we win or not. How about funding the Steve that used to be a WISP and later became a lawyer. He knows what we are and what we stand for? Side step from my bitching about WISPA, I am tired of competing against money that you, I, and everyone else in the USA has paid in on taxes. Just take a look at my area and what I have to compete against, .... I could give WISPA $100,000 and probably still not survive! Twin Lakes Telephone Cooperative... got a total of $36 million in BIP/BTOP funding for FTTH, North Central Telephone Cooperative...gota total of $50 million for FTTH in many areas that we were already covering and they were covering with FTTH. Windstream in KY got a total of $26 million to expand their coverage to everyone else outside of the city limits, What it comes down too, is how much a$$ you can kiss, and how much you can afford to pay! I may join Wispa tomorrow just in case they can take my $250 and do something useful in my favor for once? It is typical politics, the ones that can pay the most, get their way. Why do you think the go has auctioned off the good freq that most of us COULD have competed against the BIG guys, but could not afford? Yea, classify me the same a bedfast, I am at that point, prove me different, and I will join him in a counter! Scott ----- Original Message ----- From: Chuck Hogg To: WISPA General List Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2011 4:02 PM Subject: Re: [WISPA] Connected Nation Rules I didn't say that, but it is well known. Second, Connect Kentucky came to me and asked us to be a partner to Connect Kentucky. I said sure, send over the paperwork. It was a minimum $10k to be listed on the associates part. $50k to be a partner. Do they honestly think I can afford either? Guess who was partners? HughesNet, WildBlue, Bellsouth (AT&T), Time Warner, Windstream, Insight... so when a customer in my area called them to see about access, even though I fully cooperated with CK, went to EVERY meeting, provided them with full mapping data and showed them how to use Radio Mobile, they referred them to HughesNet or WildBlue. They knew I had that area covered, it was very blatant, but because I didn't pay them the money, they referred them to an inferior product, satellite service. They were provided with MILLIONS!!! to do mapping for Kentucky. The maps they did were immediately removed and taken offline as soon as their funding ran out. It was done in spite of the Kentucky Government. The TAX PAYERS OWN THAT DATA, and they stole it from us all. Guess what happened another year later? Another company was hired to do THAT EXACT SAME MAPPING again, and yes, they got MILLIONS again. I tried MULTIPLE times to work with them, and MANY MANY MANY open ended promised were made by them. None of this is opinion, it's all FACT. Ask MANY MANY MANY people around the US that are under a Connect program. Most will show their displeasure. Regards, Chuck On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 2:41 PM, David Hannum <oujas...@gmail.com> wrote: Chuck said: "It is well known that CN is a marketing and lobbying front for the Bells." I would agree with that it is a well known "opinion" by many on this list. However, from what we've seen, they lobby as much, if not more, for independent companies like most of us are. They lobby for Broadband in general - they don't play favorites at the high level. However, they have some very knowledgible, dedicated wireless guys. And if you work very much with them, you'd see that wireles is all those guys are about. Dave Hannum New Era Broadband, LLC On Sat, Jan 15, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Fred Goldstein <fgoldst...@ionary.com> wrote: At 1/15/2011 08:25 AM, Chuck Hogg wrote: >You know at the time I saw the email, I was surprised. However, >nobody on this list knows about the joke of a deal CN is like Rick and >I do. After the millions of dollars in tax revenue and all this >mapping, that public information was removed from their website. >Millions of tax paying dollars down the drain. Because of the >potential WISPA problems, I won't tell you how I really feel. I'm not a member (yet) so take that as a disclaimer. This is the public forum, not official correspondence. It is well known that CN is a marketing and lobbying front for the Bells. Bob's satire was harmless, reflective of their value to independent ISPs, wireless and otherwise. If CN is whinging, let them, because it hit home. Bob's contributions have at times been a high point of this list. Not everything has to be somber. >On Saturday, January 15, 2011, Josh Luthman ><j...@imaginenetworksllc.com> wrote: > > The problem was the lack of maturity and how bad the content > makes WISPA look. > > We have our opinions. We are people. But we, as adults and > businesses or representatives, need too display a level of advancement. -- Fred Goldstein k1io fgoldstein "at" ionary.com ionary Consulting http://www.ionary.com/ +1 617 795 2701 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! Join today! http://signup.wispa.org/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wireless List: wireless@wispa.org Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://lists.wispa.org/mailman/listinfo/wireless Archives: http://lists.wispa.org/pipermail/wireless/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WISPA Wants You! 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