Broadband Economics 101 - Focus on the economics, not the technology

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: dewayne () warpspeed com (Dewayne Hendricks)
Date: December 16, 2008 4:50:58 PM EST
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy () warpspeed com>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Broadband Economics 101 - Focus on the  
economics, not the technology

Broadband Economics 101 - Focus on the economics, not the technology
By Andy Seybold
Created Dec 16 2008 - 8:53am
<http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/broadband-economics-101-focus-economics-not-technology/2008-12-16 
>

The press is full of stories about the AWS-3 spectrum in the 2.5-GHz  
range that M2Z has been trying to convince the FCC to release so it  
can build a nationwide broadband network. The vote on the auctioning  
of this spectrum, with some conditions, was supposed to take place at  
the Dec. 18 FCC meeting. The meeting has been cancelled, although it  
is not clear whether the FCC commissioners might still vote on this  
item by circulation, which means without a meeting. Each commissioner  
would still vote and include his or her comments.

The U.S. Congress, the National Telecommunications and Information  
Administration, and the Commerce Department have all weighed in  
against the FCC voting on this spectrum with its special requirements  
(25 percent of the service is to be free, no adult content permitted,  
and the network must cover 95 percent of the U.S. population).  
Further, T-Mobile USA and others are concerned about interference to  
their own networks if this project moves ahead. Over the past few  
days, there has been a flurry of articles and letters pushing the FCC  
to abandon this auction as the rules now stand. Perhaps it has gotten  
the message, or perhaps it simply wants to push this agenda item  
through behind closed doors. In any event, I believe the new  
administration and the new FCC will want to take a look at this  
spectrum to determine how it can best be used to serve the public.

The FCC, Congress and the executive branch of the federal government  
have been saying for years that we need to provide broadband services  
to those in the inner city who cannot afford it as well as to rural  
America where it is simply not available. There have been a number of  
recent attempts to increase broadband services including muni-WiFi,  
which has failed almost everywhere it has been tried, and Broadband  
over Power Lines (another FCC favorite), which could have provided  
services to rural America had it worked and not caused interference to  
so many other services and had it not cost too much to deploy.

[snip]
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