Re: Study Gives High Marks to U.S. Internet - New York Times

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Robert J. Berger [rberger () ibd com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 12:59 PM
To: Brett Glass
Cc: David Farber
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   Study Gives High Marks to U.S. Internet - New York Times

Thanks Brett for taking the time to send me that. But that is not the
issue (and I did already know about them)

Because they all suck and/or  are expensive. (not saying all Wireless
ISPs suck, but the ones here ether suck or are "business class" (i.e.
too expensive for normal humans) and they still may suck.

I did set up my own link with a friend, and I do get pretty good
connectivity most of the time, but that is not an option for most of
the folks in the neighborhood. And even this link is not always
reliable and its not a Gigabit pipe :-) It took months to get going
(some of that was that we were doing it in our spare time) and I'm
lucky that I have generally great line of site to lots of places, most
folks don't have that ether.

But my point is not to denigrate wireless which is appropriate when
there is no other choice, like in rural low density environments, but
my neighborhood is part of Silicon Valley, the capital of High Tech
and there is no consumer grade wired/fiber service. If there is any
density of people, wired/fiber makes more sense and can deliver much
more bandwidth per end user than wireless by orders of magnitude.

I spent 2000-2007 doing wireless as an equipment provider or service
provider and my conclusion is that other than niche opportunities, it
is not a viable alternative to wired/fiber Internet connectivity.

Wireless does have a place to offer ubiquitous wireless for "nomadic"
users in somewhat dense areas, but not as an alternative to wired/
fiber for homes and businesses other than for those rural areas or
developing nations that have no physical infrastructure.

On Apr 9, 2008, at 9:41 AM, Brett Glass wrote:
> Robert, and everyone:
>
> Why is it that so many people seem to deny the existence of wireless
> broadband providers? (Susan Crawford and others have even done so in
> their testimony before bodies such as Congressional committees
> and the FCC.)
>
> I have been to Saratoga (played there with the Celtic Band Avalon
> Rising
> when it started 17 years ago) and I must say I would be extremely
> surprised
> if there were not several wireless operators like my own doing
> business in
> that area. In fact, I've just done a quick Web search and have found
> one:
>
> http://www.bullpenwireless.com/
>
> --Brett Glass
>
> At 09:31 AM 4/9/2008, David Farber wrote:
>
>
> > ________________________________________
> > From: Robert J. Berger [rberger () ibd com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 11:29 AM
> > To: John Markoff
> > Cc: David Farber
> > Subject: Re: [IP] Study Gives High Marks to U.S. Internet - New
> > York Times
> >
> > Any assertion that the US has world class internet connectivity for
> > the majority of its Citizens is bunk.
> >
> > I normally live in Saratoga, CA, part of Silicon Valley, and where I
> > live I STILL can not get ANY consumer broadband service. No Cable
> > Modem, no DSL.
> >
> > For the next few months, I am living in downtown San Francisco in a
> > high rise
> > apartment building set among other high rise apartment buildings
> > right
> > next to a major telecom hub and though we have DSL, its not
> > particularly fast or anything.
> >
> > This is the kind of location where in other countries such as Japan
> > or
> > S. Korea they have fiber to the building and ethernet to the
> > apartments at 100M - 1G.
> >
> > Instead we should have a baseline attitude more like Professor
> > Payne's
> > as per the earlier post on IPer's list:
> >
> > "Sadly broadband speeds in this country aren't really broadband at
> > all. I won't be happy until every home has a one gigabit per second
> > connection," he told BBC News.
> > He added: "If we were able to afford to dig up the road in the 1980s
> > to roll out cable TV then we can afford to do it again."
> >
> > But this time horizontally divested so that the people who own/
> > control
> > the pipes do not own/control the content.
> >
> > Rob
> >
> > -------------------------------------------
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––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-838-8896 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com


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