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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."

5 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Free Internet! by rotide · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Citizens: What a great idea! Slow, but available. If I can't and/or don't want to pay a lot for faster Internet, we have an option!
    FCC: Sorry, but this isn't in the best interests of the corporations.

    1. Re:Free Internet! by thijsh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Great plan! It would take care of the whole 'right to internet' idea, and make the US one of the first countries to effectively roll out some form of free internet to all citizens. Putting the country at the forefront of modern rights for its citizens. Any government 'for the people' would jump at this idea...
      Yeah, I can see how the corporatocracy would think this is a bad idea. There is no profit in citizen rights...

  2. Absolutely Too Much Regulation by anguirus.x · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Think about this. This company is being criticized for trying to offer a product that is a generation *behind* the current technology. Just think if you wanted to buy a microwave, but you were forced to pay double what you wanted to because some government regulation mandated you adhere to a minimum power rating, safety features like locking doors, etc. etc. etc. It would be considered intrusive and there are a ton of people who would just say "Fsck it, I don't really need soggy pizza rolls anyways". That's what we have right now with the FCC. There are millions of Americans who have no internet because it's too expensive, and they have no need for the bandwidth. OK established corporations, game time, what can *you* offer us?

  3. 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.

  4. Who put you in charge? by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Did you RTFA? No, of course not. They claim they have a good business plan. What's more, it's none of your or the damned government's business to judge their business plan, it is their investors' money, and if they want to throw it away, it is, literally, THEIR business.

    And if you don't like watching ads, don't. But it's none of your business, again literally, if others do, or even whether others do.

    --
    Infuriate left and right