Contemporaries over at Public Knowledge have an interesting editorial and observations on open bandwidth, like as free or near free as in beer.
link

As a follow up to your cohost’s posting on the 28th, here is a Wired article on the exit of  Don Berryman from his position at the firm.

My partner’s post on XOHM triggered my mind to a press release issued by Sprint some time back:

“Sprint Nextel also announced updated financial targets for its WiMAX business, reflecting final execution of the agreement with Clearwire:

• The company expects to generate between $2B and $2.5B in revenues for the fiscal year 2010 with more than 80% generated from new lines of business.
• The company expects that the WiMAX initiative will be positive for Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization (OIBDA) in 2010.
• Sprint Nextel expects to invest approximately $2.5 billion in capital for WiMAX through year-end 2008. Beyond 2008, network build is expected to be increasingly success-based. The company currently expects that extending its coverage to approximately 125 million people by year-end 2010 would require an additional capital expenditure of approximately $2.5 billion.
• The WiMAX initiative is expected to generate positive Free Cash Flow beginning in 2011 as the annual OIBDA contribution is expected to exceed capital expenditures, working capital and other cash requirements.”

Now lets see. Sprint will spend $2.5B to reach the first 100m subscribers and another $2.5B to reach the next increment of 25m subscribers. Nor do they expect to see a profit till 2011. By the look of those numbers its an urban build out in wave 1 and a suburban build out in wave 2. The wave 2 having a lower density user population. Otherwise the incremental marginal cost between the two steps makes no sense. A really aggressive accountant might recommend that once the first build out is done, quit. It will cost Sprint/XOHM 4x as much to get that next incremental customer as it did the first.

This in a nutshell is the same scenario that bidders will face in the 700mhz auction. The FCC has two mandates A) 40% penetration in 4 years, B) 75% penetration in 7 years. The (A) portion will be the lesser challenge. Its that (B) requirement that will give some bidders pause.

As my partner is want to say — that’s when you bring in the lawyers. Sigh…
link

And the offering in his narrative sounds fantastic, worthy of my spend and delightfully disruptive for the duopoly. Is it real, when can I have it?

(article here)

The exam 70-290 is necessary for MCSE students. In order to get more familiar with the 70-292 exams, you can study online exam preparation guides. For the purpose of avoiding failures in the exam 70-296, you need to learn the basics of planning, implementing, and keeping up a Microsoft windows server 2003 environment. The 70-291 test guides offer you complete question and answer guidelines.

Chicago had big plans for a large WiFi network covering some 300 sqmi. But that seems up in the air now. Here were the dreams of a Chicago action group. The actions did not meet the platitudes, why?May I suggest –

• As always, especially for CDAA, the idea that ‘community’ is the basis for a business plan of implementation is fraught with the wreckage of those having gone before. For every successful FaceBook there are a 100 nice try’s.
• Single vendor solution. In Chicago’s case they awarded to Earthlink. Well Earthlink is now backpedaling out of that space to ‘realign’ their expenses with their profits. The point? The beast is too big to swallow. In the current environment the upfront costs are so high that no single entity can do it. I include the Telco’s in that genre as well.
• The Auction is coming. When one considers that come February there will be a new lay of the land for 700mhz anyone plunking money down now is taking a huge gamble. They could be swept away by whatever comes out of the FCC auction in January.
• Old School Thinking. Quite honestly Earthlink’s offer was not that innovative. It required large amounts of money by a single entity to capitalize. Had little or no viral aspects to it. Focused clearly on a pay for layers 1-3 to it. Telco mentality. I suspect the future is not layers 1-3 but layers 1-20. Smart money would say “sell a right to use, at a cheap price. require the purveyor to buy the equipment themselves. Provide a modicum of network support/management. Make your bucks off a cobroker adsense arrangement and right to use fees at the end user level.” Another words spread both the capitalization, the risk and the reward over as many interested parties as is willing to join your effort.

Broadband wireless in a nation the size of the US cannot be reasonably covered in the time frames specified by the FCC by any single business entity. I doubt if even the combined talents of every single Telco can do it. (The Telco’s have other irons in the fire sucking gobs of cash [eg FIOS for Verizon] which has them distracted.) To ante $4.6B just to bid is a tip of the iceberg when you consider the costs of implementation that will be required.

A different implementation scheme is required. The ‘I own the pipe’ won’t cut it. The players don’t have the time or the capital to meet mandated dates. Whoever are the winners in January have to come up with a scheme that leverages the opportunities of the many to profit for the whole. That means partnering with the restraunt and hospitality industries. Partnering with homeowner associations. But it also means you have to adopt an internet-like management model and be willing to share some of the profits.

Sky, of the UK, best known for its in-your-face news style is venturing into the broadband arena. They purchased EasyNet a while back as part of a strategy. They up to now however have only offered the service as part of a TV/data bundle. Well that is about to change. By the end of the year. a data only service called Picnic will be providing a DSL only service. 16mbps for $20/mo. Not stellar pricing but better than other offerings currently in place. More at the link from Sky Users Forum.

Link

David Farber is a communications Illuminati. Or to paraphrase the old EF Hutton commercial — When Farber speaks IP packets listen.
Link

On Tuesday, EarthLink announced that it would shed 900 employees. The reason was simple, said Rolla Huff, CEO of the company. EarthLink, which has had four solid quarters of losses and a sinking stock price, needs to return value to its shareholders. And this means eliminating jobs that don’t help the company add subscribers or increase revenue.

Back in the dial up days, independent ISP’s had a fighting chance. The duopoloy was more like an octopoly, and all you had to do to compete was lease phone lines at the same price as anyone else and attach modems to provide last mile access. Broadband is another story, they own exclusive rights to the “last mile”. The “wholesale priced” access to the duopoly’s facilities is in fact priced up to make it virtually impossible to compete with them on price. Earthlink was trying to create their own third pipe via municipal wireless, but it is a long term investment, and full of potential political upheaval like they are currently experiencing in San Francisco. So Earthlink management has had to drop back 10 and punt 900 souls in the hopes of regrouping and finding a way to win in a fixed game. I wish them the best!

article on news.com

article on GigaOm

Filed under AT&T, Comcast, DSL, States, Verizon, Wifi, Wimax by admin

Permalink Print Comment

Next Page »