Free Nationwide Wireless Internet Access?

LiquidEdge writes "ISP-Planet is reporting that startup M2Z wants to offer 95% of America free wireless Internet access using the 20Mhz frequency allocation. They're backed by Kleiner Perkins, one of the most successful VC firms in history, and being started by the guy who built the @Home network and a former FCC Wireless Bureau Chief. 384/128 speeds will be free and they'll sell the higher speeds and the government will get a kickback of the revenue."

Comments

20 MHz *Bandwidth*, not Frequency

[Parker51]

"20Mhz frequency allocation"

More precisely, a 20 MHz *bandwidth* of frequencies in the 2155-2175 MHz band. I did a double-take when first reading this article, because it almost reads as though this service will be operating on a center carrier frequency of 20 MHz. That wouldn't make sense, as that's smack in the middle of the High Frequency, or "shortwave," bands. Not only does that provide worldwide propagation at modest signal powers (as little as a few Watts), users of those frequency bands would be limited to at most a few hundred kHz of bandwidth, which would be unusuable for high-speed computer networking.

So, the M2Z service is proposing to run on a microwave band, requiring lots of infrastructure and towers, like WiFi or cellular telephone.

Or 95% of the web sites

[PIPBoy3000]

It looks like they'll be implementing an "always on" filter. From their filing:

Mandatory Filtering of Indecent and Obscene Material. M2Z commits to mandatory filtering of indecent and obscene material for the National Broadband Radio Service. This will be accomplished through a compulsory setting on the service that will utilize state of the art filters, taking every reasonable and available step to block access to sites purveying pornographic, obscene or indecent material. Like the free service itself, M2Z's content filtering will be "always on." Moreover, National Broadband Radio Service customers will be unable to alter the filters as they constitute an essential element of that service. To accomplish these critical filtering functions, M2Z plans to route National Broadband Radio Service traffic through a set of servers that can examine the traffic flows for improper activity and restrict access as required. Thus, the nation's children -- and their parents -- will have free access to broadband that is not only very affordable but also family-friendly and free from pornographic and other indecent material.

Think of the children . . .

Author Dave Burstein here, agreeing

[Daveberstein]

Dave Burstein here, author of this one. Comments are right on target, so I thought to stop by with some followup.
1- The business plan sounds dubious, but heck, let's let Kleiner Perkins pay the bill to find out whether they are chasing a dot-com model. May or may not be decent business (smart folk like Dewayne Hendricks are skeptical), but it's good policy to get it built. They are only asking for a 15 year license, not perpetual.
2- The existing carriers will fight like hell to stop anything like this, as noted. So instead of whining, do something in D.C.. I hear more people making noise on these forums than I ever hear in Washington. I know you think Washington never listens, but I've seen ideas of mine in FCC regulations and congressional statements. You may not have the $million AT&T gave to Congressman Bobby Rush, but may of the people making decisions are honest and will listen to you as well. Email me daveb at dslprime.com for some ideas.
3- "So, will this be 95% of the population of the U.S., or 95% of the geographical area?" They are aiming for 95% of the population, with a sensible excuse not to get to the other 5%: excess cost of fiber to connect the towers to the Internet backbone. So my next editorial will be: Serving the next 10%: FCC needs to bring down the cost of backhaul Revive tough "special access" rules where broadband is hard to get (suggesting that if the local carrier isn't offering DSL, make them lease fiber cheaply to someone who will.)
4- All that said about universal broadband coverage on land, some small portion of users (my guess is 1-3% but no one has hard data) are best served by satellite because of terrain/distance problems. Policy on that is to find a way to bring down the price/bring up the speed of satellite service. I always prefer to do that by competition when that can work.
Dave Burstein
Editor, DSL Prime