Re: Obama's FCC team & Wired/Wireless

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: David Lassner <david () hawaii edu>
Date: November 15, 2008 3:44:21 PM EST
To: Brett Glass <brett () lariat net>
Cc: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, David Farber <dave () farber net 
>
Subject: Re: [IP] Obama's FCC team & Wired/Wireless

Sorry if my use of the word "plea" was offensive.  It was not my  
intention to deprecate you and your colleagues, but merely to point  
out that people working on supersonic carriers are not necessarily  
against cars either -- they're just working on another part of our  
integrated transportation problem.

Speaking personally, I am a strong supporter of spectrum reform, level  
playing fields and "wired and wireless" strategies.  Susan Crawford  
would have to speak for herself (and I suspect she's a little busy for  
that right now:-).  But my interest in promoting more shared  
infrastructure fiber is not an exclusive strategy.  And I expect it  
would benefit you and your colleagues and customers if the WISP  
community had non-discriminatory access to fiber infrastructure to  
support your business as well.

best, david



On Nov 15, 2008, at 9:43 AM, Brett Glass wrote:

> At 11:07 AM 11/15/2008, David Lassner wrote:
>
> > As a regular reader of IP, I see the pleas from Brett Glass that we
> > take WISPs more seriously.
>
> Mr. Lassner:
>
> Please do not characterize me or other WISPs as "pleading" with  
> anyone.
> To do so would be to deprecate us and our livelihood. We are very  
> proud
> of what we've been able to do under adverse conditions: Not a shred of
> spectrum dedicated to wireless broadband; no antitrust enforcement
> despite blatant anticompetitive tactics; government subsidization of
> our competitors (but not of our own operations); regulations that put
> more constraints than us than on the large corporations with which we
> compete. We believe that it is a disservice to the country when we
> are ignored or dismissed by lobbyists who favor policies which would
> prevent us from continuing in business.
>
> Our customers already do take WISPs very seriously. We cover hundreds
> of square miles that are not served by cable or DSL, and we make it
> possible for those customers to live where they do comfortably and
> productively. The only barriers to our growth are capital,  
> anticompetitive
> tactics by other carriers, and inappropriate government regulation.
>
> > I agree that pure WISPs, 4G and even 3G can be competitive with many
> > of today's DSL/Cable offerings and shouldn't be discounted by those
> > who are focused on objective #1.  But it also seems clear that the
> > deployment of advanced broadband services by world leaders (e.g.
> > KDDI's recent rollout of 1Gbps symmetric consumer service for under  
> > US $60/mo) is based on a different approach to public policy and  
> > shared
> > infrastructure than our current U.S. non-policy.  We need people at
> > the FCC who understand this as well.
>
> Do you have 56 HDTVs in your home? It would take this many, all  
> playing
> 1080p streams simultaneously, to exhaust 1 Gbps of bandwidth (not
> that you'd want to foot the bill for that much bandwidth, which would
> cost more than $6,000 per month -- not $60 per month -- at wholesale  
> at
> a major hub of the Internet). To deprecate wireless because we do not
> currently provide the absolute highest speeds available in the world
> (though we could, with current technology, if we had the spectrum) is
> akin to saying that no one should drive because supersonic airplanes
> exist.
>
> > While some propose wireless as the alternative, the Task Force
> > believes that “wired
> > or wireless?” is the wrong question to ask.
>
> On this we agree.
>
> > Fiber optic cable
> > provides the greatest
> > capability with nearly-unlimited expandability to fixed locations,
>
> On this we do not agree. The cost of running fiber is too often  
> prohibitive,
> limiting its expandability. And cutting into fiber to provide  
> service to
> a single location can be prohibitively expensive. Wireless is far more
> cost-effective not only in rural settings but in urban ones, where  
> many
> WISPs (including our own) compete gamely with the telephone and cable
> companies. And, again, the capacity of our links to our customers is
> limited not by the technology but by regulatory barriers. As an  
> electrical
> engineer, I can say with assurance that if I had about 2 GHz of clean
> millimeter wave spectrum (3 or 4 would be ideal but we want to have  
> room
> for multiple providers), I could engineer -- with existing  
> technology --
> equipment that would blow FTTH away in terms of cost/performance.
>
> --Brett Glass





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