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Verizon CEO Calls Municipal Wi-Fi 'a Dumb Idea'
ozone writes "
An interview with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg quotes him as saying that 'Municipal Wi-Fi is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard' and 'Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?' -- apparently Verizon's own 'Can You Hear Me Now' ad campaign has given customers 'unrealistic expectations' that their phone service will work everywhere. What?"
in many areas not just software. This time it's a business model being threatened which starts the FUD just like MS does with Linux.
Verizon is evil generally and since having cable modem and Vonage I haven't paid a bill to them in at least two years. The charity I volunteer just switched to Vonage from Verizon and they are saving a couple of hundred a month.
Verizon has many reasons to be upset but technology marches on. You can't control everything. Learn a lesson from MS and their attempts to FUD Linux.
It also works in tunnels (which surprised me).
They're even extending service into the subway.
When a CEO bitches like that, he's just scared of competition.
I'd wager that one is too many, and if I were to get service from them, it'd better damn well work when I'm at home. Think I'm gonna give my HOME phone number out to every client? Hell no.
And Timothy's paraphrasing for the dumbest quote was not misleading and still follows the original pretty damn close. It's just big CEO's afraid of competition they can't match. And that crap about pre-empting the state? That's all we need, for every phone company to behave like the RIAA.
Also, your stupid "Logistics Concern" even if it's using tax dollars, it's creating jobs. Local jobs at that, which can't be outsourced to India or China, or wherever is cheapest at the moment. Do you think verizon cares about the local economy? Hell no, I live in KC, with sprint, seen it first hand.
If you hate it so much, why do you even read Slashdot? Why not give it the same treatment you give Verizon?
I disagree. I think it is a great idea. Here in Holland there are a few great initiatives based on wifi to bring wireless internet to the masses. And these initiatives were not set-up by big companies but by individuals. Ok, I have to tell you that these projects were started in the city and not in a rural area. But we do not have many of those over here in holland. But they were able to built a wireless network for one city-district called lombok (www.lombox.nl) with only one antenna on the church tower. And rural areas mostly have a church in the center. So in my opinion municipal internet is a good idea. Gives you a nice position in the communitie. The towns netman.
While I agree with part of what you said, Slashdot is a geek news site. Just like other forms of media, you have to grab attention. Also, I think it's worth noting that you should always RTFA that's been linked to.
It's also worth noting that the Verizon CEO wants to eliminate as much regulation as possible at the state level and give it to Congress and the FCC. Yikes!
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
" I get the impression he's complaining about people who call to whine that the phone doesn't work in certain, limited patches even though it works fine everywhere else."
What really gets me is that Slashdotters, most of whom KNOW how radio works, bitch about it too. They also seem to think that the handset itself is the problem.
"Derp de derp."
municipal wifi is a great idea if you want to lock in 802.11g as the standard for the future... being able to sell homes and businesses wifi technology is what keeps pushing the technological envelope... want to kill wiMax? Support municipal wifi.
Amazing magic tricks
I have a feeling that his statement will somebody become a famous quote, like these:
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.
Ken Olsen, President, Digital Equipment, 1977
For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press three.
Alice Kahn
Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand.
Putt's Law
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
Richard Feynman
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
They belong to corporate america and are dispensed by the FCC which is under the control of corporate america.
Radio was a nice way to deliver 'censored' and 'politically correct' information to the masses but....
a new competitor has arrived. It's name is Wi-Fi and it scares the hell out of the cozy 'good ole boy corporate-government' network at D.C. because it costs them $$$ for all that spectrum they paid billions for.
It's just a matter of time before public pressure forces the SELLOFF of the corporate radio networks back to the government or some other WiFi businesses. Nobody wants one way RADIO anymore.
The FCC should NOT be in the position of selling spectrum to the highest bidder.It should be handing spectrum to WiFi networks where it will be used alot more efficiently and help serve the most people.
OTOH, population density is the enemy of all things wireless: you can only have so much bandwidth per node, so the denser the population, the more nodes (and at lower power so they don't overlap) you must have. So it's probably a wash between dense cities and medium cities since you can space the nodes further apart and up the power in the smaller ones.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
No, CDMA is a case of better technology that lost. Though I'll admit that the SIM card is a great feature in GSM, and overall GSM works just fine. There is a reason that all the 3rd generation protocols are CDMA, including the GSM version. CDMA is hard to make work, but once it works it works better.
You seem to be making the classic mistake of picking something, and then defending your choice as better no matter what. Don't do that. GSM works just fine, and is more common. That does not mean it is better, though it might still be your better choice. Nobody goes to hell for choosing the wrong cell phone protocol, so don't get religious about it.
OTOH, if you want GSM in Ottawa, you're stuck with Rogers "bend over and this won't hurt much" AT&T.
No thanks. You couldn't pay me enough to put up with their crap again. Between a cell phone that got jacked, a couple of customer "service" people who didn't believe that I hadn't been making long distance calls from Vancouver to Lebanon, middle management after middle management that couldn't possibly grok the fact that their own records showed concurrent usage from the "same" phone in Ottawa and Vancouver, them taking a year to cancel the service, only to not actually cancel it and send me to collections instead, and a year's worth of fighting with them in small claims court, no thanks. And then they wondered why I cancelled my video rental, TV, and Internet with them. Fuckers still call me to offer me bundles on the service, despite being asked to put me on the do-not-call list repeatedly. Ted Rogers can go to hell.
Service was great when it was Cantel. Then they merged with AT&T. Coverage was still good, but customer service was nonexistant. Then Rogers bought Cantel, and the whole shebang went to shit.
I'll stick with CDMA. The coverage map is less than half the story, and besides, I have much better reception and coverage with Bell than I ever did with Cantel/Rogers/AT&T.
Incidentally... you do realise that it's *far* cheaper to buy a phone and use pay-as-you-go when you're in Europe than it is to bring your phone from home?
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
There is no reason to think that a government body, or quasi-government body like most public utiltiies couldn't set up a good network and do it for less than a company like Verizon.
A lot of it is in hiring the right people. Right now there are large nubmers of very skilled people that are unemployed or underemployed. These people could be snapped up at a good price.
Also, as many developing countries have learned, it's cheaper to invest in modern technology than to maintain and upgrade older networks. A wireless network that uses off-the-shelf modern parts should be much cheaper than a custom network built over a much longer time. Look at all the articles about growth in South Korea and similar places.
A standardized network based on WiFi also would solve Verizon's "customers expect the network to work everywhere" problem because customers could throw up their own antenea on their house. ie It could even reach their basement just fine.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
heheh. Like the local cable service here saying "what business does the power company have doing cable service?"
:)
Before we got the local (municipally owned) power company's broadband/cable service, the local Comcast affiliate was "waiting on equipment" for broadband rollout (waiting forever almost.) And since SBC (Phht. ACK. Spit on their GRAVES) doesn't roll out DSL city-wide, we were waiting for some competition to spur on the monopolies. (put it in the poorest section, don't get many subscribers, then claim there's no market for it? GREAT IDEA local phone monopoly!).
Once the vote for our power company to do cable/internet service was in, not more than a week later, broadband was suddenly available from Comcast "city-wide." Uh huh. Must've been waiting for the universal remote to control the broadband or something, and it came in via UPS in the nick of time.
Imagine if we had voted no?
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
According to your logic not only is publicly funded Wi-Fi unAmerican so is the state police,fire department,abulance and education. Yet every one considers them to be necessities. Well surprise but so is the internet. I know for school that if I didn't have the internet I would be failing since all the info is posted on-line. Almost all my projects require information that I could only get on-line. The internet is becoming a necesity and thus should be provided. Back in high school I only knew 4 kids in my grade that didn't have the net at home and all their marks were alot lower then the rest of my friends. Teachers have come to expect tons of info in your projects that would normally be impossible with just the books in the library.
This would very likely improve education and also allow for better services like ambulance that can that set up a video confrence with a doctor as they rush a patient to the hospital. By the time they would get to the hospital the doctors could be completly ready and not making last minutes changes and running around trying to figure things out. Police would be able to instantly locate on a map where any crimes were happening and keep track of car chases while being given updates on road conditions up ahead. Public wi-fi is not unAmerican, its an improvment to the quality of life. When did improving the quality of life become unAmerican.
First and foremost is our decentralized government. In order to put up cell towers, permission of the local government authority is required. In New England, this is at the town level. There are 351 of these in Massachusetts alone. In some cases, like the towns of Lexington, Weston, or Wellesley, cell coverage is very spotty for all vendors because the towns won't let the carriers put up enough cell sites to blanket the area. The excuses given are varied, but tend to revolve around not wanting to "spoil the view", or earth-and-crunchy concerns around "not wanting to bathe the neighborhood in "radiation" that Could Cause Cancer or other fine diseases.
Other than that, the rest of the reasons probably devolve down to logistics: can the phone companies get power (redundant if possible), equipment, and fiber-optic cable (to carry the calls) run out to where the cell site is without incurring drastic costs? Even in built-up New England there are still plenty of places where the answer to that appears to be "No", or perhaps "Not Yet".
At least this is what it seems when I drive along U.S. highways and some Interstates and see "No Service", "Digital Roam" or "Analog Roam" on my cell phone.
The landline phone companies operate under the requirement to provide Universal Service. I wonder if it's time for the cell phone companies to be put under the same requirement in order to keep their chunk of spectrum?
San Francisco wants to perform a public service, and Verizon is only pissed because they lost an opportunity to grab a buck. These greedy businessmen would charge us for the air we breathe if they could get away with it. They are nothing but bloodsuckers.
How ya like dat?
Re-hashing a 1992 usenet post from alt.folklore.urban:
"I, too, have heard the story about an architect who planted grass instead of laying sidewalks, let people walk where they would, and retrofitted sidewalks over the ruts in the lawn."
What do you think this could imply if we make relevant analogies; pure chaos?
And slashdoters are backing these creeps up. It's shocking really, the amount of corporate-monopoly cheerleading you see on slashdot these days. I can't help but wonder if posts like the grandparents are done by "public relations" for company X and then the lackies run around modding it up.
Any blind idiot can see that Verizon dude is just scared of competition, consumer choice, and being forced into a business model that takes care of customer needs, not his. But you pegged the attitude perfectly -- "pay us, fuck you".
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Then why is the Verizon guy talking about cell phones?
-insert a witty something-
Telecoms providing tariffed services subject to government regulation are not fans of change. Anything they can do to inhibit change and protect their current revenue stream is something that they will do. Some less well-informed people will read his comments and think twice about investment in new technologies. Therefore, mission accomplished for him.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
The sooner there are mobile VoIP phones, the better.
Also, most DSL systems are fairly oversubscribed, in terms of number of users per megabit of upstream bandwidth. So to do a rooftop network, you put more real bandwidth in the wired sites and do the oversubscription out on the radio side instead of in the DSL router side, and it works fine.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
is health care. We Americans pay more money for less health care, most of it due to massive amounts of bureaucratic overhead in the supposedly "efficient" private sector.
Is Universal health care in other countries perfect? No, of course not.
But UHC is better than a sixth of the population simply having no health care coverage whatsoever and many beyond that having inadequete health care coverage. Better than half the people declaring bankruptcy doing it because they got killed by medical costs. We're getting screwed by the insurance companies here.
And before some dittohead chimes in with "malpractice costs" talking points, insurance companies are screwing us there too. Lawsuits and payouts have been trending downwards for years but insurance rates keep going up. Some of it is due to the insurance companies making poor investments and getting killed in the stock market. But mostly it's just greed. If you need any more proof of how malpractice "reform" solves nothing, check out how rates in the states that have imposed limits have gone up faster than the states without them. Go figure. A Bush-sponsored solution that solves nothing. Whatta shocker.
Universal health care would slash huge amounts of overhead out of the costly and inefficiently run health care industry, provide better health care for Americans and make businesses here(especially small ones) more competitive with each other and with others overseas.
I notice that imperial CEO's always self-destruct, like Jerry Levin of Time-Warner, who sold his company to AOL just before the Internet company crash. Perhaps that's why the Verizon CEO sounds so arrogant.