Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Can Wi-Fi Take Us the Last Mile?

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2003 19:12:38 -0400

------- Original Message --------
From: [email-masked]
Subject: Can Wi-Fi Take Us the Last Mile?

http://www.business2.com/articles/mag/0,1640,47997,00.html

Can Wi-Fi Take Us the Last Mile?
New FCC rules make it harder for DSL upstarts to compete with the Baby
Bells. 
But the wireless revolution might keep the big guys honest. 
By Cory Doctorow, April 2003 Issue

So much for consumer choice. The Federal Communications Commission has
turned 
its back on the public by abandoning rules that require the Baby Bells
to 
accommodate competition in broadband services. Until recently the Baby
Bells -- 
heirs to the nation's local telephone lines after the AT&T (T) breakup
in 1983 -
- were required to share their lines with new rivals at set prices. This 
created a competitive marketplace that allowed nimble players like
EarthLink 
(ELNK) and Covad to roll out flexible, low-cost alternatives to the Baby
Bells' 
highly restrictive DSL plans. 

Entrepreneurs have taken advantage of these rules to nurture new
services and 
technologies. Speakeasy, a national ISP based in Seattle, allows
customers to 
operate personal Web servers and wireless access points so neighbors and 
passersby can share their Internet connections. The Baby Bells
absolutely 
forbid residential customers to engage in that sort of thing. 

The new FCC regs will allow the Baby Bells to price broadband
competitors out 
of the market. The feds have thrown the rate-pricing question back to
the 
states, saying, in effect, You figure it out. That means that in some
states we 
might get vibrant markets, while in others -- places where the phone
company is 
in bed with the local government -- we'll get no competition. 

The outlook is especially grim for the burgeoning market in
voice-over-Internet 
technologies, which allow anyone to make local and long-distance
telephone 
calls via the Internet at a fraction of the telecoms' rates. It's hard
to 
imagine the Bells voluntarily allowing customers to sidestep their core
line of 
business. More likely, they'll use blocking and sniffing technology to
hinder 
the use of Internet-protocol-based telephony services. 

"Open wireless" is also likely to end up in the Bells' crosshairs. Open 
wireless networks allow passersby to connect to the Internet for free
with a 
laptop and a wireless card. Community groups like the NYCwireless
collective 
have inundated public spaces such as Bryant Park with free wireless, and
the 
group also contributed to Manhattan's disaster relief effort after 9/11
by 
creating a network of open wireless access points for struggling local 
businesses. Yet the Bells' service agreements don't allow customers to
operate 
public networks. If niche players like Speakeasy are frozen out of the 
residential DSL market, open wireless access points are likely to become 
increasingly scarce. 

But all is not lost. Tim Pozar of the Bay Area Wireless Users Group has 
embarked on an ambitious plan to install high-speed wireless access
points on 
the peaks of San Francisco's famous hills -- a move that is legal under
the 
same FCC data-communication regulations that gave rise to the Wi-Fi
revolution. 
Under Pozar's plan, anyone with a directional antenna (a surplus
satellite dish 
or even a modified Pringles can will do the trick) would be able to aim
it at 
the nearest hilltop and connect to the Web for free. Such "wireless
ISPs" 
(wISPs) have serious commercial potential: Instead of needing the Bells' 
expensive last-mile wires to reach customers, wISPs create sprawling,
low-cost 
networks serviced by strategically placed antennas. 

Now that the FCC has abandoned any pretense of giving the public the
best 
possible deal for Internet service, such wireless experiments may well
be the 
last bulwark of competition the Baby Bells face. Pozar and others won't 
displace wireline DSL anytime soon. But their presence may be enough to
keep 
the Bells honest -- encouraging them to treat users like customers
rather than 
passive "consumers." America has been waiting for 20 years for the phone 
companies to act like real businesses. Under the new regime,
entrepreneurial 
and philanthropic efforts may be the only ways to make broadband service 
ubiquitous and competitive.  

Cory Doctorow is the author of the science fiction novel "Down and Out
in the 
Magic Kingdom" and co-editor of the Boing Boing weblog at
www.boingboing.net.

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