WISP

Hint of daylight for CASF community broadband funding

30 October 2012 by Steve Blum
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Pretty much any organization would be eligible for broadband infrastructure subsidies from the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) if the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) follows through on a decision made last week and if the California legislature agrees.

Right now, funding is limited to companies that sell telephone lines (very broadly defined) and hold either a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) or are registered wireless telephone carriers.

Cities, independent Internet service providers, non-traditional telecoms ventures, community organizations and others can’t get funding directly.

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Update: Brown signs SB1161, no new Californian regulations for Internet services

30 September 2012 by Steve Blum
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California governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1161, which prevents state agencies, particularly the California Public Utilities Commission, from extending regulations and oversight to “Internet Protocol enabled service”, including specifically VoIP, until at least 2020.

In his signing message, the governor said “this bill encourages the continued growth of these and other innovative services that have become a hallmark of our state.”

The language of the bill is broad, covering any service that “enables an end user to send or receive a communication in existing Internet Protocol format, or any successor Internet Protocol format through a broadband connection, regardless of whether the communication is voice, data, or video.”

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When she's good, she's very good; when she's bad, she's better

28 September 2012 by Steve Blum
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Governor Jerry Brown has until this Sunday, 30 September 2012, to approve or veto Senate Bill 1161, which would prohibit the California Public Utilities Commission or any other California state agency from regulating “Voice over Internet Protocol and Internet Protocol enabled services” until at least 2020.

The bill is controversial and the debate has been emotional. Advocates say it would clear the decks for continued high tech innovation in California, opponents say it would deregulate big cable and telephone companies and allow them to bully consumers and bury smaller competitors.

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Mesh WiFi coverage depends on what you mean by coverage

7 July 2011 by Steve Blum
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WiFi is great as the last link between the network and the user. It’s high enough bandwidth that it’s not a bottleneck, people know to look for it and the available hardware and clients are well advanced. Consumers will pay for casual access, but in that case they expect performance. They love free WiFi and will put up with a surprising amount of hassle to access it. Companies like Meraki have made it very cheap and easy to get a “drinking fountain”, amenity grade WiFi service up and running, on a paid or free basis.… More

Redefining municipal wireless

Municipal wireless was declared dead at the Wireless Communications Association’s recent symposium in San Jose, but the picture that emerged from three days of discussion, debate and presentations at the European Wireless and Digital Cities Congress in Barcelona this week was more comprehensive and nuanced. And optimistic.

The difference lies how you define municipal wireless. Older, more familiar models are certainly dead. No one expects a private company to invest in building a city-wide WiFi network to provide public Internet access, whether free or for a price.… More

The future of wireless internet service

Forget trying to build a wireless Internet business with any idea of serving people in their homes or businesses. In general, wireless technologies don’t work as well as the hard-wired options. Wireless Internet service will succeed where wireless technology holds an advantage.

Wireless broadband technology has three advantages over landlines:

  1. It is ubiquitous.
  2. It can be rapidly deployed for a far lower initial capital outlay.
  3. It excels at delivering the same bit stream to many people at the same time.
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A brief postmortem on the wireless Internet utility

Nearly all of the city-scale, mainly WiFi-based wireless ISPs of the past three years are dead. Some, like Philadelphia, lumber on as zombie ventures. A few small town systems will continue to operate as long as the social and political consensus supports the subsidy required. And there are a couple of big city projects that haven’t burned through their initial operating capital yet.

But the rest are dead. The disease that killed them was cash flow hemorrhage, brought on by virulent churn.… More