Hi Mike, I'd say that what you are reading - between the lines - is legitimate. When AOL began their open access campaign about a year ago plus, I posited over in the ATHM thread that folks better get used to the idea, because the same thing would occur in wireless.
If need be, I'll search for my earlier posts on the topic (SI search doesn't help much, fwiw) so I feel it's only fair to advise you that my fee goes to double time and a half on Sundays.
All the way on the left we have "open access" in its purest form, and on the extreme right we have the monopolistic walls of exclusion.
Logic would dictate that if government and industry have settled on some middle ground that accepts openness, that it should apply in principle, equally, to all forms of access (if the underlying principles are valid), to all three or four: ILECs, CableCos, "and" WirelessCos. and Satcos.
So far, in practice it's only applied to (and without much of a fight in recent times, to the best of my knowledge I might add) to the ILEC model.
OPEN ACCESS<-------->Limited openness<-------->TOTALLY RESTRICTIVE
But I must confess that I don't know what the business models behind the new wireless 'net access operators look like. Are they fairly standard in scope? Or, are there a number of different generic models we can list, and discuss?
On the surface it would appear to me that the physical layer (air interface) dudes could either impose their own first page arrangements and require users to pass through their toll booths first, OR, they can arrange to be last mile utilities and sell their services to both end users and all comers on the ISP/OLSP/Portal side. The content side, in short.
"Wonder how FCC's Kenard is going to treat the issue of multiple ISP access on the tiny wireless pipes?"
With the exception of Metricom's older vintage platforms whose speeds they will be enhancing in coming months, and some special purpose CPCD (cellular packet data) and SMS services, most of the Next Gen wirelesses that we're probably talking about here will be faster than today's dialup network (DUN) platforms, comparable to lower speed DSLs and cablemodem nets (when they are on the first legs of congested). Performance will vary, in other words.
We attempt to assign some level of "braodband"-ness to these emerging capabilities, thanks to the marketing hype, but they are still subject to the same ills that face some cable and dsl platforms, in practice, when you take into account their sharedness, too.
I just read the AOL/Collision article you posted. I seem to recall that AOL did an about-face, or started moving sideways on their demands for government relief on open cable access, right after they put the TW acquisition in play. Recall? If memory serves me correctly, Case came out and stated that they had seen the light and that perhaps the better approach would be to let free competition dictate the outcome, instead of seeking regulatory relief in their open access fight. Case got religion all of a sudden. Did he/they reverse their position on this topic, again?
Was that a dream that I had? OR, did that reversal on their part actually happen? And if such relates to Cable, then why should it be any different for wireless?
Now I suppose that they will weigh their options to acquire a national wireless firm, and, potentially, thereby decide to soften their approach for regulatory relief there, too... or NOT. It must be nice to be that big and powerful, eh? Sooner or later Kennard (visionary or not) may just get thoroughly fed up with these guys and drop a dime (quarter?) to the DoC, and then to the DoJ, and ask for some relief, himself.
FAC |
