Free Nationwide Wireless access?

[lvx35]

Just saw this on slashdot. I wonder how it might affect the net neutrality issues I've been reading about.

http://www.isp-planet.com/cplanet/tech/2006/prime_letter_060522.html

One company has applied to the FCC for 20 MHz of spectrum in return for providing 95 percent of U.S. customers free coverage (after CPE purchase).
by Dave Burstein
of DSL Prime and Future of TV

Email a colleague

"M2Z's goal is … provide free high speed connections to 95 percent of U.S. consumers without any recurring fees. This is a grand undertaking."
—M2Z FCC request

Kleiner Perkins, history's most successful venture capital firm, is backing John Muleta and Milo Medin's offer to unwire the entire United States. 384/128 will be free while they'll sell higher speeds, ads, voice and much else. In return for 20 megahertz of spectrum, M2Z will pay a 5 percent royalty to the U.S. We give 19 megahertz to a TV network that mostly plays infomercials, so this is a no-brainer. "Affordable broadband for all Americans," anyone.

This very unconventional proposal makes so much sense Kevin Martin should find a way to say yes, after reviewing other proposals. Add another RFP: 10 megahertz in return for selling mobile telephony for $15 a month and history will acclaim Martin as a great Chairman. After 1996, the world looked to the U.S. as a model; since around 2002, they've been laughing at us. This kind of innovation is what we (and many other countries) need.

[lvx35]

1. This could be very good news

provided that the higher speeds/voice/video access if for sale at reasonable prices to standard consumers, instead of a means of enforcing media monopoly on the net.

[tuvor]

2. What exactly is this CPE one must purchase?

And how much $$$ does it cost?

[RoyGBiv]

4. Computer, basically, but ...

In this context, it means Customer Premise Equipment.

And that could also mean a proprietary device is necessary, which is not a good thing.

[lvx35]

6. Probably about $80 after production rises.

The article states that the first line would be around $250, then down with production, so basically the same as cable modems, which are now at $60. But then after that you have DSL speeds indefinatly, which means this could substantially effect things if it goes through. I just wish I knew how its might affect net neutrality, of be affected by it....Because this whole model is based off different speeds for different users.

[RoyGBiv]

3. 384/128?

That's slower than some dialups (49.2 kilobytes per second/16.4 kilobytes per second).

Well, I suppose if your choice is that or nothing, it's a good thing.

I'm more interested in their business plan for what they're going to sell, and more importantly, how they're going to sell it. This strikes me as possibly a carrot offered to get a horse to walk over a cliff.

[lvx35]

5. No, its DSL speeds.

That bit is kinda unclear, but I believe its DSL speeds. 384 mbps down, 128 mbps up, whereas dialup is 56 mbps up/down.

And yes, I have no idea what the politics behind this are, but I'm curious because right now its being backed by supposedly the most successful venture capital firm in history, which means its very possibly a go...And the model seems to relate to the net neutrality debate, so I'm unclear whether to be excited or afraid.

[RoyGBiv]

9. Clarification ...

DSL speeds aren't exactly static, but the standard DSL connection today is 1.5 mbps (megabits per second), which is 1500 kbps (kilobits per second). Premium DSL lines are 3 mbps/3000 kbps. In terms of kilobytes per second, correctly abbreviated as KB/s, this is 192 KB/s and 384 KB/s respectively. IOW, in order to get 384 Kb/s down, a DSL/Cable speed, you have to have a 3 Mb/s connection.

There are two problems with suggesting they are meaning this to be DSL speeds. Most notable is that later in the article the author indicates the company intends to "wholesale" the "3 meg" speeds to other companies. They're not going to wholesale something they're giving away for free. Second, and less clear, is that when providers advertise their speeds, they do so in terms of bits per second, not bytes, which leads to a logical conclusion of 384/128 refers to kilobits per second, not kilobytes.

Also worth considering in the latter context is the pairing as used in the current market. One of the best upstream speeds you can get from a commercial ISP is 1 megabit per second, which is in fact 128 KB/s. If the pairing indicates KB/s, it means you're getting a 3Mbps/1Mbs connection, which precludes any of the higher speeds being of much use to the average consumer, which in turn severely limits their market.

One reason I noticed this is that the 128 upstream speed is typical for "value" services companies offer as a last restort (usually 768/128, or about half a standard DSL line speed) while trying to sell the higher speed services in the hopes the customer will upgrade later. Marketing for these companies long ago realized that if you advertised that for what it is, about 16 KB/s, i.e. slower than dialup, no one would want it. So, they use the larger number of 128, rather than the 0.128 Mb/s, and rely on people's inability to devide and multiply to realize just how much slower this is than the grand sounding "megs" they offer as premium services.

[TheWraith]

10. KiloBITS versus kiloBYTES

What they're talking about here is a connection speed of 384 bilobits downstream, 128 up. That's roughly half the speed of a basic DSL connection or 6-12 times the speed of a dialup modem. Since 8 kilobits = 1 kilobyte, then 384 Kbits down translates to about 48 KBytes per second. The upload speed would be 16 KBytes per second. To give some perspective, that would be enough to download song-length audio or a short video clip in under two minutes, compared to about twenty minutes for dialup.

16 KB/s is nowhere even close to slower than dialup. It is in fact four to eight times FASTER than dialup. There is no dedicated broadband system in existence which is slower than dialup.

[RoyGBiv]

20. Not correct ...

Your numbers are fine, but you have an incorrect understanding of how fast or slow this is.

The fast dialups are ~56 kilobytes per second. A standard DSL of 1.5 is 192 kilobytes per second. 3.0 is 384 KB/s, etc. I have a 9 megabit per second connection, and when it's getting optimum speed, I get around 1100 kilobytes per second. To put it in the terms you used, I download a song in a few seconds. I can download a full CD in a few minutes.

Compare 16 KB/s to 192 KB/s.

FWIW, an easy to use equation to figure advertised speeds in terms of KB/s, which is what your browser or FTP client will report when you download something, is as follows:

M = advertised megs or megabits/s

(M * 1024)/8, e.g. (3 * 1024) / 8 = 384 KB/s

To figure something like 384, you just divide by 8, which is what you did of course, but to then determine relative speed to those offered by broadband providers you need to make direct comparisons to what those speeds are in terms of KB/s, which is much faster.

[TheWraith]

29. Dialup is NOT 56 KBytes per second. It's 56 Kbits, or about 7 KB/s max.

Plus, you're comparing the upload speed of the proposed wireless connection to the download speed of DSL. Plus, dialup modems don't get the advertised 56 Kbit speed--most of the time they get between 20 and 40 Kbits, which is 2-5 Kbytes per second. Here's a breakdown of theoretical maximum speeds in KBytes per second:

Dialup modem = 6 KB down, 6 KB up.
Proposed wireless = 48 KB down, 16 KB up.
Basic DSL = 96 KB down, 16 KB up.
Midrange DSL = 192 KB down, 48 KB up.
Really good DSL = 384 KB down, 128 KB up.
Good cable = 625 KB down, 250 KB up.

So while the basic wireless plan would be slower than full-scale broadband, it would be free, and a hell of a lot faster than dialup.

[RoyGBiv]

32. My apologies ...

I had a complete, massive, and total brain fart.

You're correct.

[lvx35]

13. my bad, I meant kbps not mbps

but 384 kbps down... so satellite speeds? ISDN? The point is it beats my dialup.

"Marketing for these companies long ago realized that if you advertised that for what it is, about 16 KB/s, i.e. slower than dialup, no one would want it. So, they use the larger number of 12"

Yeah, I'm just waiting for these guys to start making their own units of measurement...Kool Points Per Sycle to describe why theirs is the fastest and the best. :)

[RoyGBiv]

21. Old ISDN ...

Back when the theoretical maximum for dialup modems was 28.8.

If you have a 56K dialup, it's slower than your dialup.

To be fair, it's about the same as dialup on the downstream leg because even with 56K, most people connect somewhere in the 40's. But, the advantage of dialup over this is that your upload speed is the same as your download speed with dialup, while it is significantly slower with this proposal.

[TheWraith]

30. Not slower than dialup. See my #29. NT

[RoyGBiv]

39. You are correct ...

A truly had a massive brain fart and am quite embarassed about it.

But, I was totally and completely wrong. My apologies.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

7. Net Neutrality activists - check out this thread...

a civil discussion with a former lobbiest AGAINST Net Neutrality.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1268943

[lvx35]

15. Great thread, thanks.

What I can't figure out is why the bells can't just sell the bandwidth to the highest bidder instead of trying to become new media moguls, which seems to be what they are up to.

[RoyGBiv]

24. That's exactly what they're up to ...

I know this is off the topic of your thread, but I thought I'd take a moment to respond since you mentioned it.

This is all about their phone service and the lock they have had on the market. It's been slowly but surely encroached upon by other companies, notably cable companies, since deregulation, and the Bells have done nothing but spend these last many years working toward a way to reverse this.

Since 2000, they've been getting a lot of favorable legislation at the state level and rulings from the FCC and SEC at the federal that are allowing them to move back toward the monopoly they were prior to the ATT breakup. Note the recent buyouts and mergers.

Along the way, the rules changed in the marketplace as to what consumers wanted, something that was led by the cable and then satellite industries. The Bells are trying to undermine them both by creating a new playing field on which they are the masters without regulation of any kind.

I've heard these Bell lawyers work. They're good. Irritating as all hell, but good.

[kysrsoze]

25. That is not at all what they are up to...

The bells will never have a monopoly again unless they can convince Congress to shut down the cable companies. What you have is an oligopoly, which is not necessarily the worst thing on earth provided there are controls. Granted, it's somewhat ridiculous for the Bells to expect to get around franchising agreements, but the cable companies also get around local phone service taxes and regulation through VoIP. The truth is that every large corporation is trying to maximize profits and cut expenses, and there is no reason for one large corporation to benefit at the significant expense of another.

Net neutrality is not about shutting down "subversive" websites or blocking traffic. It's about not allowing services such as Google TV and Yahoo Video to ride their bandwidth for free. The idea of "Quality of Service" is nothing new. This is why corporations rely on dedicated T-1 lines instead of DSL with the same or higher data rates to transfer their data. They are paying extra to have guaranteed bandwidth that is free of slow turnaround and dropped packets. These companies are investing billions of dollars to create a pipeline which will guarantee their HDTV signals (or those of companies who are willing to help fund it) will take priority over other "free" traffic. Free traffice won't stop. It will be even faster than it is today. Streaming video and downloads are tiny when compared with the bandwidth required to deliver simultaneous data, voice and HDTV service to two televisions.

Consumers can now pay less that 25% for DSL speed than they did three years ago. It makes no business sense to invest billions in infrastucture for a $20 per month access fees while Microsoft, Yahoo and Google essentially ride for free. Sure, they pay hosting fees, but that is a fraction of what it costs to deliver that much bandwidth hogging data across the country. That kind of disparity in cost of service will put the Bells out of business, or relegate them to providing DSL at rates which will not support advanced video services. Even when CLECs were paying below cost to sell phone service over the Bells' lines due to TA96 requirements, they were at least paying something.

The question comes down to whether the public wants to continue paying ever-increasing bills to the cable companies or having a more competitive market price for IPTV or cable. No one rides for free.

[RoyGBiv]

27. Well, that's *their* argument ...

Doesn't wash, though, imo, in part because of the way it starts.

The implication in your first sentence is that Congress will need to shut down cable companies literally, which of course won't happen, so supposedly the point is made. But, the point isn't made because cable companies will start going out of business left and right when phone companies are allowed to work in communities under a different set of rules that in turn allows them to offer cheaper service, at least until they've run the competition out and can charge whatever they like. Further, without the need to abide by must carry restrictions, phone company video service can dictate terms to over-the-air stations, much like the satellite companies tried to do but couldn't effectively because of the competition from cable and its ability to offer and bundle more services than simply video. Satellite has to team with a telco, and to date, this has been a profitable venture for both. When the Bells start offering video, satellite will be in a bad position and have to rethink their marketing strategy as primarily rural or outer suburb oriented. The cable companies go next.

And Congress does enable that by offering friendly legislation that is advantageous only to one arm of the industry, the one with the most money.

On the point of unfair advantages, cable companies do *not* get around local phone service taxes in any way, shape, or form. (I'll show you a bill if you like.) Cable companies that provide phone service are levied with precisely the same taxes as traditional telcos. They are also regulated in the same way and with the same terms. The Bells started this myth, and it is a complete fabrication, but they use this to try to convince the public that in order to be competitive, they should be exempt from franchising agreements. The public, not knowing any better, listens to this and thinks they're going to end up with a better deal if they support the Bells. Of course, it doesn't work that way.

Companies like Vonnage are a different animal entirely, and I must admit I'm not sure how they are regulated exactly. However, Vonnage and similar companies require the use of a broadband service of some type, but this isn't the same as a cable company that offers telephone.

[TahitiNut]

8. I wouldn't trust anything Milo Medin was involved in after the @Home scam.

@Home was deliberately(?) set up as a bucket for expenses (a planned bankruptcy) while accumulating a customer base (corral of sheep) for it's cable company owners. They made overtly fraudulent performance promises they demonstrably had no intention of meeting. It was a breathtaking exercise in accounting 'magic' and setting up a company that had absolutely no chance of surviving, based on the revenue split contracted between the owning cable companies and the @Home 'service'.

[0rganism]

11. Fantastic, I'll be staying the hell away from that

You won't get something for nothing. "without any recurring fees" looks like a loophole you could drive a truck through, particularly a truck carrying startup fees, overuse premiums, distribution of personal info to advertisers, and crappy user support. Indeed, it is a "grand undertaking", and I'd rather not be among those taken under...

[lvx35]

14. I dunno...

There is a company called nocharge.com that provides free dialup with no ads or anything, I have no idea how they continue to exist for years, but they do. But I am wary here too...If I heard $20 a month for it I'd be excited, but I don't understand the model, unless they are talking about giving you TV/radio with some of that spectrum and putting their ads in that, which is what net neutrality seems to be fighting against...But if that's it, the good here seems to outweigh the cons.

[0rganism]

26. too many known unknowns

The unknown unknowns, I can live with. There's something about the description that doesn't sit well with me -- they're buying some very expensive bandwidth to give away. It's like having Enron agree to do your sewer facilities free, if they can just operate a nuclear reactor in the center of town...

[lvx35]

33. totally.

I fear its about spectrum control...Internet as a TV type model, where it comes into your house free, but what exactly is on TV is controlled by media moguls, and the best thing you can buy is ads, contrasted to the current internet model of each user paying and the network being totally free and open.

[TheWraith]

37. They're not exactly buying it...

The way I read the article, they're basically asking the FCC to assign them the bandwidth for free, and in exchange they agree to provide free basic internet access to 95% of the US population. They then take that 20 MHz of space the FCC gave them, use 19 MHz for a TV station that does nothing but infomercials, and the other 1 Mhz becomes wireless internet. Seems fairly clean to me. I don't know how practical it would be in terms of startup costs, but I don't think it's as suspicious as all that.

[TheWraith]

12. This would be too brilliant for words. K&R.

Broadband wireless internet is a thing whose time has come, and delivering it for free only makes it that much smarter. Of course, that's why they probably won't do it.

Kicked and recommended.

[lvx35]

16. Its exactly the kind of infrastructure project the government should do.

IMHO. Like Roads. Public, paid for by taxes. Wow, what an amazing concept, paying taxes and actually getting something in return! :)

[TheWraith]

28. There are a bunch of muncipal wireless projects going on right now...

Including the state of Rhode Island which is planning to have complete wireless coverage some time in 2007 or 2008. Lots more city and town sized projects. Though it's worth noting that for the price of the war in Iraq we could have build coverage for the entire continental United States.

[lvx35]

34. God, are you serious? That's terrible.

but it sounds right, 200 billion to blanket the US in internet coverage. Sure glad we found those WMDs! I'm sure glad the iraqis are so happy to be "liberated"! :(

[TheWraith]

36. Maybe not even that much.

Rhode Island's mixed WiFi/WiMax network is estimated to cost about $20,000 per square mile of land covered. If you take that as a baseline, complete US coverage would cost about 120 billion. Even if you boosted that by 50% to account for scaling issues and so forth, you're talking about 180 billion dollars. For what we've spent on the Iraq war, we could do that, and still have saved another $103,220,000 and counting. And that's without even really leveraging the tools of the federal government--you could probably slash that cost if you could get the FCC to allocate some 700 MHz spectrum to dedicated wireless internet.

It's crazy the amount of benefit you could get from that kind of infrastructure, too. To communication; to education; to public safety; to business; across the board. There was a study awhile back saying that business users with mobile broadband were something like 40% more productive than those without. Then there's the whole "on-shoring" issue.

[lvx35]

38. Absolutly, yes.

The safety is a big thing to me. One of the big benifits of the plan in the OP was having spectrum for government public safety things, like could have been very useful after Katrina (provided that the wireless towers were resilient enough to have survived the storm) because there was basically no communication after the phone lines went down, which is very ghetto considering what century we are living in. And of course, education....Couple this with $100 tablet pcs for low income students and paper is irrelevant, everybody can do homework on PC, which reminds me that it is an environmental bosot too, all around.

[Clovis Sangrail]

17. heh

think we have privacy issues now?
just wait until everybody is connected wirelessly

Right now it's illegal for me to tap my neigbors phone
It's NOT illegal for me to monitor his wireless traffic that makes it onto my property

and what are the ramifications as far as civil liberties?

I love the idea of everybody being able to connect fast and free, but if not implemented properly it's just asking for abuse.
...and not just from script kiddies

[heartofthesiskiyou]

19. That is easily overcome by encryption

which is recomended on wireless data. We should be encrypting everything now BTW in MHO.

[RoyGBiv]

22. "Easy" is relative ...

I totall agree with you, but trying to explain how to use encryption with the average computer user is like trying to discuss philosophy with a rock.

[Clovis Sangrail]

23. of course we should

but we don't.
Go wardriving in San Jose, New York, or any other major poplulation center.

I realize encryption *will become more widespread... but encryption doesn't always mean secure.
At least not with wireless....

AirSnort requires approximately 5-10 million encrypted packets to be gathered. Once enough packets have been gathered, AirSnort can guess the encryption password in under a second.

http://airsnort.shmoo.com/

http://www.grape-info.com/doc/linux/config/aircrack-2.3.html

[TheWraith]

31. That protocol has since been replaced.

The original WEP, Wired Equivalent Privacy, had a lot of flaws. They fixed a bunch of them in later revisions (note that that app hasn't been updated since 2004), but now WiFi has been upgraded to new forms of encryption. Besides which, there's nothing limiting you to using existing encryption standards if you're building your own network. Not only could you double or triple the encryption strength, implement rotating keys, etcetera, but there are plenty of secure proxy services which would offer a secondary layer of encryption even if someone managed to crack the wireless security.

More to the point, if you're not using off-the-shelf consumer hardware, any eavesdropper would need very sophisticated and specialized tools in order to even make the attempt.

[TheWraith]

35. And one other thing...

To give you an idea of what 5-10 million packets means... According to my laptop's logs, in the last 98 hours, I've exchanged about 3.1 million packets with my router. So somebody would have to capture all of my internet access, 24/7 for 1-2 weeks in order to crack a weak WEP key.

[Clovis Sangrail]

40. you didn't follow the links

*tsk *tsk *tsk
aircrack works on WPA
( and most consumer wireless routers still ship with a cracked version of WEP)

The last update to aircrack was 11/2005.
The last update to the aircrack-ng splinter was earlier this month.


As for sniffing.. it doesn't require anything sophisticated.
Just a wireless adapter and the proper software

of course, you are correct, that a user can add additional to data payload, my point is that a very small segment of the computer user population has any idea how to do that... and consequently won't do that.

[heartofthesiskiyou]

18. This is totally feasible except on a couple points

Mainly the FREE part. But a small fee of about $10/connect makes the system work and creates incredible profits. It is the direction we were headed before this administration came into office. It was the direction I (my ISP) was headed in until the current "conditions", which brings me to the other "problem". The FCC is controlled by Repukes and won't give you the frequencies at anything resembling a fair price because it would hurt their Telco friends. Don't hold your breath waiting for the feds to give it up for a 5% cut. They wouldn't give it up for a 25% cut or probably any cut.

The primary profit potential exists due the initial period due to the fact that growth would be phenomenal in the first few quarters and then level off due to the fact that a ton of others would come into the market and traditional market forces of supply and demand would come into play. The fact is internet, phone, radio, TV, and any forms of data transfer is nano dust. Using radio or microwave is by far the most efficient, cost effective method of data transfer available. The reason for the high cost in things like cable or DSL even satTV (excluding programming) is so high is they are monopolies not cost of bandwidth. The Telco’s are raking the public over the coals for what they provide as far as what it actually costs them. The copper wire model is the most ridiculous method one could choose from an efficiency and cost effective stand point.

IN an ideal world, and maybe we could get there with a non-purchased congress, this most assuredly is where we will head at some unknown point. Bandwidth is not an expensive item, it is merrily created with equipment at fractions of pennies/mega byte no different then your CB radio with a nine volt battery. A standard wireless either net in a little computer card creates 11,000,000 bytes/sec. These speeds could handle TV video. Compare that to your 256,000 bytes at DSL or your 56,000 byte dialup modem.

I suspect that the venture capitalist and the investor here have viewed the costs of equipment and connection costs to the existing backbone. Unfortunately he is a little green behind the ears, along with in dire need of a calculator. When he gets to the problem he'll find that if they would sell him the frequencies they'll be in the many many tens of millions of dollars to acquire his 20 MHz hold, take many years of FCC hearings and many millions in legal fees to find it has been figured out to be at a price to make it unprofitable without charging in a traditional neighborhood of $30+ for an internet connect that is designed to keep the monopolies "going". I've been down this road so I know what I'm talking about. He's on the right track though. He's just behind the eight ball monopoly and perhaps a decade before his time, and that time is entirely political. But from a feasibility stand point it is entirely possible to provide an end user with a connection that would handle all his/her communications needs for $8-10/mth/user and could occur in as little as 6 months or a year. BTW the same issues are involved in cell phone connections, we're being raped.