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Technology Stocks : The *NEW* Frank Coluccio Technology Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (4662)	12/18/2001 2:33:20 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 46821

WLAN connection: My ESP (Electricity Service Provider) -has a lot to teach to some of those bozos who operates ISP and other guys who scratch their balls going from a Forum to another. It offers me electricity and don't give a shit of what I do -or how much I use- with it. But -and that's a big but- it charges me accordingly. I am a home user and they connected according to certain rules. Wire gauge and such and according to a tariff structure for a home user. Up to 100kWh is tax free and dirty cheap (0,16862 Brazilian Reais per kWh) so that everyone can use the service. If I am working abroad, they don't care. They charge me these 100kWh regardless if I am out. If I use more it stars charging more (0,26374) Brazilian Reais per kWh) plus 25% tax. They don't talk about QoS. They don't talk about 99.999 and other crap. They just keep me supplied of electricity. They don't bankrupt me just because they are the sole provider of electricity. The I have here my bill where everything is detailed for the last 12 months. There is a demonstrative of the quality of the service: Duration of interruption, frequency of interruptions. If use too much above my average, (as when I returned from Europe or forgot once an iron on for week while in a business trip) they measure it again and send a letter alerting me of the fact. They don't dim the lamps if the heaters kick on if we are ironing. The first time this started to change, they screwed up big time. Here in southern Brazil we don't have blackouts because our rivers run inland, then turn down south and runs towards the Plata down in Uruguay, so we dam the water and have lots of power while the rest of Brazil whose rivers run right down to the sea are facing difficulties. So we also were very economical in transmission lines interconnecting the national grid, so that if they are in the dark we don't care since they should be more clever in building infrastructure. But don't tell them!!! Now in the telecoms business we have all those entrenched interests that block every technological advance to the detriment of the whole economy of a country which should be the first one to champion the advances of high technology. That because it doesn't make money planting soy beans orange juice. The US has peaked, I keep saying, that because there is too much collusions among all economic players and this is cause economic stagnation. Not me who say that: It was Mancur Olson.

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (4662)	12/18/2001 2:54:12 PM
From: TheStockFairy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 46821

Security Schmurity :) The provider gave me a mini-dish outside and radio receiver. I already had a NIC card, but I could have purchased and installed one for under $50 myself, if I needed to. I don't remember the brand names, but I could post them later. The need I would be attempting to satisfy (very low barriers to entry and all) is that most of the professionals I know can not get broadband access, and all live in highly populated areas. Think of metro loops, if the fiber doesn't go into your building, you are not on-net with that carrier. They can go type 2 (using another carrier to terminate the access into your building) but then the business either isn't profitable for the selling carrier or the price point is too high for the customer. Up until one month ago, I was off-net for every single carrier on the planet for broadband service. Now I am on-net with a single wireless provider. I see a first mover advantage here and need a pretty small base of clients to make my money back. I was talking to a friend of mine and he was saying that he wanted to upgrade his office internet connection to a DS-1 from a frac-t. The port alone was going to cost him $700 and add another $700 for the local loop. If I can oversubscribe just 3-1, I can pay for most of my operation (I think I'll do 100-1 :) ) As for competition, yes, there is going to be a ton at some point, I am not seeing it currently though. That's why it's important to lock customers into multi year deals (like I got locked into). I don't think that most people are waiting for a free internet connection, I think they are waiting for ANY internet connection. If they want a connection for free, they are going to be waiting for a long long time. Also, most people do not know someone that is creating a guerilla wireless network and I'm thinking the people that will participate in that type of action is not my target market. Most of what I have read on those type of networks indicates they have less than 20 subscribers per network.