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AT&T Wireless Drops Fixed Wireless
n8twj writes: "According to this story at Internetnews.com, AT&T has decided to graciously bow out of the Fixed Wireless arena. This is a move that strands 47,000 of its customers, displaces its entire fixed wireless division staff and costs the company more than $1 billion." Iridium, Ricochet, and Sprint's ION are now gone or all-but-gone, too -- it's been a bad year for unconventional Internet service customers.
Many times on slashdot (or elsewhere, I hear the words "Just get a cable modem or DSL". Well, dammit, for many of us, that is not a possibility.
I live in one of the most well-connected areas of the country, and probably in the world. UUNET, AOL, MAE-EAST, and countless others are located out here. My county also has one of the oldest Cable-TV plants in the country. I live in one of the fastest growing sections of the county, and our CO is both overburdened and too far from my house for DSL.
In short, Fixed Wireless, had it even been available here, is the ONLY reasonable broadband option for me. (I'm not prepared to deal with satellite latencies).
People need to realize that losing these alternative systems is a phenomenally Bad Thing. I fully expect that in 2 years (just as the next-generation DSL that might have finally gotten me service comes online, maybe) DSL will be provided in my area by Verizon, and Verizon alone, and they won't bother upgrading, so I'll still have no DSL. And as for cable -- well, that *might* work, maybe, but I'll never get static IPs or a server-friendly AUP.
Sure, I might not have had that with Wireless, either, but with more competition, especially from different media, there'd be more service-level competition for DSL, and more urge to expand and improve service. With no competition, well, why bother?
It constantly depresses me, the state of technological affairs in this country. For pete's sake, we invented (more or less, perhaps) DSL, the Cell Phone, and countless other incredibly cool or useful technologies. But because "competition" and "the marketplace" is so vitally important to us (or at least to our well-funded politicians), we don't have any standards, we have incomplete rollouts, we have lousy service, and Microsoft.
And the worst of it is, most of the public at large doesn't realize that it doesn't have to be like this! We accept BSODs because, well, computers crash, don't they? We accept lousy DSL service because, well, we're running out of IPs, and we don't have any backbone fiber left, right? We accept reduced cell phone services because it's great that we have a choice between CDMA and TDMA and GSM, right? Geez.
Sorry for the rant. It's been a bad morning for me so far.
So, let's say, for the moment, that a bunch of smart geeks running a non-profit ISP were to get together and start an 802.11-based fixed wireless service. How much, really, would that cost? Where would we get startup money? If we're going to serve 50, 100, or 1000 subscribers over a 2-10 Mbps connection, is it really resonable to have only a single T-1 on the back side? How do we afford a fatter pipe, if the subscribers are willing to pay half the cost for fewer services over cable?
In short, we need these big businesses to build out these networks, to dip into their funds and live with losses for a couple years. We simply cannot do this ourselves.
If anyone knows how we can do it ourselves, please let me know, 'cause I know a bunch of smart geeks at a non-profit ISP who would love to do exactly this.
I work for a small ISP that just rolled out wireless broadband, and the response has been excellent. With the number of people who have signed up for service, the business offering will definitely not be a money losing venture. I can only imagine that a complete and utter breakdown in management skill is the plague that effects AT&T. Of course we're not going to try to take over local phone service or other extraneous services, because we're an Internet company...maybe AT&T should find a focus and stick to it, and stop trying to be everything to everyone...sounds like some other companies I know...
the people wander around and suppose, while the secret sits in the middle and knows.
Fixed Wireless, which combined high speed access with telephone services, had worth to AT&T as a hedge against lost market share in LD and in their dial-up ISP Worldnet; it also was meant to stand as a building block in their "all services, any distance" strategy.
With Wireless spun off, the new company is not interested in the high-speed access market, unless there's immediate profit in it. And there isn't. AWE will do better without it; they surprised the market yesterday by showing some black ink.
Not directly related, but of interest in how quickly these things can pan out (or wash out), here's Michael Armstrong's ambitious plans for combining AT&T services and how it failed.
I survived the Dick Cheney Presidency 7 to 9 AM 7-21-07
Was it from a need or a business standpoint?
How many other times have parent companies closed "lesser" earning holdings so that they can take a tax write-off on the "failing" business to off-set the windfall profits they made earlier in the year. The business world sucks because everything comes down to the bottom line. How much money can we make for our own pockets and our stockholders. I've been on both sides of this and when it was money in my pocket I raved about how good business is. After being on the consumer side of things, it blows.
How many of us were changing our Telco's weekly when they were passing out checks to switch? I must have bounced between MCI, ATT, and Sprint five or six times in one month. But when the checks stopped I went with the lowest costing company.
Yes, it's frustrating, but until someone comes up with a better idea I think it will continue.
Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Just to check out the feasibility of something like this, after seeing all the cost speculation on here, I decided to give a call to the local Sprint office. Here's what I've found:
Full T1 line, terminating in my residence, I provide CSU/DSU and routing equipment:
Installation Fees waived with a 12 month contract, unlimited IP addresses assigned from Sprint pool. Total Monthly recurring cost is $300 for the local loop and $881 for the T1 port fee.
So, compare this with my cable modem at $50 a month, and I'd need 24 users to break even- if I don't provide equipment, beyond the AP and antennas I already own. But to get to 24 people, I'm going to need a few thousand dollars worth of investment to set up the infrastructure to provide for a wider service area.
Tower space can be expensive if you don't know where to look. In the small town I live in, people needed TV towers to get anything back in the pre-cable days. This included alot of businesses that felt the need for some type of communications. There are alot of bars, auto parts stores, empty buildings, etc. with some pretty hefty structures attatched. I have had success in negotiating near-free installation of equipment on those towers (I pay their electric bill one month out of 12.. In one case, I'm pretty sure they're losing money on the deal, because I'm using way more than 1/12 of the electricity to keep my boxen running)
Of course, as long as you only need a little lift - say under 200 feet - you can legally fly a balloon with a few tight moorings and any equipment you need. (If you live too close to an airport, the legal limit is lower than 200 feet.)
That could be a maintenance un-friendly installation though. It'd be a hell of alot of fun to try though.. Think Helium line running up alongside coax and power feeds. Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
I apparently forgot that sig != uptime...
To be fair however, there are some limitations/drawbacks to fixed wireless ( as pointed out above ):
It's all changing rapidly, and with recent advances in technology it's just getting better. The way dialup was back in the 28.8/33.6 days and has grown to what it is now is similar with fixed wireless. The early adopters will get a head start on everyone else.
ObDisclaimer: I work for a fixed wireless provider, so I am a bit biased, but we also have done DSL and continue to do dialup access.
As for being economically viable, if you price it below your cost to deliver then it doesn't matter if it's DSL, Cable, Satellite, or Wireless. Good Technology != Good Business Model. If there is demand for high-speed access, then the market will determine what costs are acceptable. If it's not a commodity ( and I'd hazzard the supposition that fixed wireless is not yet a commodity ), then consumers will pay a premium for it. So yes, I will stake my claim and say that Fixed wireless can be economically viable, provided the business plan and pricing decisions are based in reality and derived from the actual "cost of goods" and not a made up number to attract VC or push an IPO.
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Segmentation Fault ( core dumped )