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To: Dexter Lives On who wrote (18726)	3/11/2002 6:12:38 PM
From: Quincy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 34857

Rob, every other post to this board (except for times when Illmarinen is not safe to drive) contains fantasies that cause me flashbacks to the mid 80's when stupid people thought Commodore Amiga was going to put IBM and Apple out of business and the 90's when stupid people staked their hopes WCDMA was going to put Qualcomm out of business. Forgive me. I don't derive pleasure from being right and Ebay is far more important than you. "Now that DT has started rolling WLAN out in size, and integrating it with more than adequate (for voice and basic data) 2.5g technology, let's see how it evolves." Where? Two service providers in southern CA are deploying MMDS as a replacement for T1's to businesses for 3 figures a month that requires rooftop antennas and line-of-site (we have hills here). Some ISP's are leaving Covad for SBC as their DSL CLEC. I am not aware of any efforts to deploy an always-on connection in rural areas. Out east of me in the California Mountains, there are communities only served by ISDN's and T1's. Take it or leave it. Providers haven't always been right in the past, Rob. We thought WCDMA, HDTV, PriceLine.com, MiniDisc and Iridium would turn a quick profit too. "Every SP on the planet has plans to bring in WLAN over the next 12-18 months;" How? Current Wireless last-mile services fall into three categories: MMDS, operating in their licenses starting at 27Ghz which I haven't had anyone try to sell me a rooftop antenna for. There is the interference-prone free-for-all 2.4ghz band limited in power to hundreds of feet by the FCC and of no use to any provider due to that last mile backbone cost thing. And, the 700mhz band; currently occupied by religious and educational stations who, along with our elected officials, want cold hard cash for the spectrum they have been using for decades. The US government is waiting for VHF TV to go out of date so they can reauction that spectrum as well. Good luck. Digital TV/HDTV barely accounts for 5% of an existing userbase of 23 million TV's. Where are you going to put WiLan when the test licenses run out? The advantage to 1X/Do is its deployment cost is well under $100 per terminal. Unlike GPSOne, it just doesn't require additional parts in the radio. Performs in mobile situations unlike OFDM. Reuses existing radios on both handset and base station for 1X about to be deployed in more than 4000 communities across the US. More importantly, it uses spare in-band channels at 800 or 1900mhz with FCC mandated expectations on minimum interference. "Of course, I'm assuming your post will still be there by the time I've responded - running for the hills (or outhouse) seems to be more your style..." Since you are berating me for removing an obvious reminder of what bandwidth is practical to deploy and why, I must warn you: getting personal is a defense tactic commonly used when you have nothing left to lose. You have failed to demonstrate any point in the history of the world where customers will pay a premium for a wireless internet service enough to turn a profit. This year, very few Internet companies forecast anything but a smaller loss than last year with no end in sight. Either WiLan will be deployed in dense areas where existing solutions are faster and cheaper or out in the cornfields of the midwest where computers are far between. Last week, you claimed the Cablemodem industry will happily be the backbone for hundreds of free 802.11b/2.4ghz access points even though terms-of-service agreements common in that industry expressly forbids that. In the Midwest Cornfields, the cost of deploying or renting large backbone pipe now becomes a factor in any last-mile technology. Incumbents can use their existing backbone to their advantage as long as their WiLan/HDR/OFDM/whatever can coexist in their existing spectrum license. I have serious doubts on WiLan as the last mile. I have serious doubts on adequate backbone connections. I know all about dark fibers across the nation. The problem is those fibers don't go where WiLan needs them to go. In the past couple of years, processor speed and compression algorithms have risen to give us quality streaming programming while coexisting with last year's backbones and last mile connections. I am not having problems downloading patches to my trojan-horse infested Microsoft virus victim. The popularity of DSL at 256kb/sec tells me the killer app for a bigger pipe for under $100 a month has yet to emerge. Since Napster is no longer considered a power app, keep searching.