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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."

3 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.

  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.

  3. 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