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M2Z's Free, Wireless Broadband Killed In Advance

Posted by timothy on from the sorry-wrong-bribe-please-try-again dept.

mspohr writes with a sad excerpt from Fast Company: "Despite a seemingly stout business plan, and all the financial, social, and educational benefits it would bring, the FCC's just turned down M2Z's application for a coast-to-coast free wireless broadband system. ... The FCC is known to have heard complaints about M2Z's plan from existing wireless carriers. Though M2Z's network would've operated at under 1 Mbps peak speeds — meaning it was very slow by today's standards, and probably snail-like by tomorrow's — its free pricing may well have tempted many folks away from spending cash with an established ISP. Those carriers are now reported to be pleased with the FCC's decision, though they argue it's in line with the greater National Broadband Plan. Whenever that actually gets off the ground."

2 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. "Can be used to watch porn" by wvmarle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article mentions that one of the early complains against the proposed free network operation was that it can be used to watched porn.

    Well of course it can be used for that. It can also be used to plan terrorist attacks. Or even more nefarious things: people may us it to discuss whether to plant yellow or pink flowers in their garden.

    Interesting how this "but it can be used to watch porn!" argument pops up any time someone proposes a free or cheap new way to connect to the Internet.

    It makes one wonder why this is never used seriously against established operators. Why this is never used against proposals to providing cheap Internet to poor families (supplied by established ISPs of course). It couldn't be something political, or could it?

  2. Good riddance by russotto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This wasn't a free nationwide internet plan. This was a spectrum grab with the nationwide internet plan added to sweeten the deal for the FCC.

    M2Z's trick was going to be to use a spare bit of the radio spectrum, the 2GHz "AWS-3" band, and earn itself cash by embedding ads in its free Net service as well as licensing out part of the spectrum it would then be controlling for other commercial uses.

    The second part is the key thing; they would have gotten the AWS-3 band, nationwide, for free, and then leased it back out.