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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."
...have anything to say about it. This effectively proposes enough bandwidth to eliminate the need for a traditional cellphone. Instead, you'd be able to carry around a Voice over IP phone that gets you the same coverage everywhere, with no "per minute" fees. The likely extension of this would be that a new telephone network would emerge that wouldn't even bother with POTS compatibility. Just assign your phone a DNS name, and you can start calling "l33tdude.myphone.net" instead of a horribly abstract phone number.
Give it enough time, and the POTS system (as well as all those expensive cell towers) would go away permenently. The result would be a network with communications that are as free as instant messaging from your computer. Certainly an attractive world for the consumer, but can we really expect to get there without interference? Not to mention that this would mean the end to phones subsidized by cell phone connectivity. Net phones would sell for what they're actually worth as opposed to being "free" or "discounted" with service.
Not that this isn't without its advantages. I don't know about anyone else, but my cell phone never truly feels like it's "mine". Its linkage with my phone carrier makes it feel more like a device I've rented. Especially when carriers like Verizon go out of their way to disable features like the USB connectivity on the Razrs. Sure, in theory you can pop in a new SIM card. But because of network differences and technology changes, it usually ends up being easier to get a new phone and throw your old one in a landfill. What a waste.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The cable companies (not much difference between them and 'traditional' telcos) will also want to stomp his idea flat.
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From what I can gather, any cell company would want the sole control of some UHF bandwidth in exchange for offering "free" entry-level wireless internet access *in exchange for* the right to offer premium pay-for / high-performance service.
Its a trick. Get an axe!
No sir. If anything, just open the entire UHF spectrum for municipal wireless internet access. We don't need to assign control to a single entity (e.g. - two or three companies would be able to compete for both free and pay-for service). Yes, you'd still have to regulate it a bit since the spectrum is too valuable to be clouded up by the general public but single-source is just too dangerous. We've already learned that most anyone will take a few dollars in exchange for their corruption (e.g. - the "free" service has high-latency that prevents VoIP and other value added services).
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and the government will get a kickback of the revenue.
That's called "lobbying".
Interestingly, they reason they're offering the government money is not as a 'kick-back', but to actually pay for the allocation, since they aren't offering any money to purchase it up-front.
Although I think it would be great to have free nationwide 384/128kbps wireless, I see two issues:
One with the filter they want to implement. If this becomes ubiquitous then anyone who pays for another ISP may be assumed to be doing so for 'porn' purposes. So you might want to keep your non-NBRS ISP connection to yourself.
Also this is a big-brother wet-dream! Especially if people start using it for unencrypted voip traffic. No need to bug people's houses. Just get anywhere within x-miles of the target and you can read everything they send out. And it will be easy to find them using a triangulation of multiple towers in the area. At least in heavily populated area's; it might be alittle more difficult to triangulate someone's position using the single tower in BFE, Kansas.
Anyway, in the past I would have considered someone crazy if they really thought these things were an issue. Unfortunately recent history is making me more and more concerned.
Nothing to see here
I suggest you click on the "Public Companies" link to the left on the page you linked to.
Your opinion might change.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?