city wifi

I read not too long ago about a few college towns implementing free wireless internet in their community. As expected, there was quite a bit of push back from local broadband and DSL companies. After all, if everyone can get free high speed internet access via a wireless connection, who's going to pay for it? I think that they managed to get it approved though under the assumption that it was mostly being used for educational purposes, because it was for a college town.

This brings up an interesting case, though. In the past, free internet access was only available at places like the library. As wireless has become more prominent and affordable, it started popping up in cybercafes, airports, and hotels. So, what is to stop communities from implementing their own? Granted, there would be some sort of cost involved, but why not start a wireless company and pay for your costs by showing some advertisements at login? I'm sure that there are free wireless providers doing it right now, by showing ads while you are surfing, like the free dial-up companies were doing.

I wonder if it would be possible for a company to earn enough only by serving advertisements at login, and not while surfing...If so, that sounds like a doozy of an idea.

broadband chewing into wireless router sales

Several months ago, when we moved into our new home, I signed up for DSL and got a great deal from SBC/AT&T - $12.99/month for a year. Granted, this "introductory" price will change at the end of the year, but I'm not required to stay with them if I don't agree with the new rate at that time.

As is typical when changing high speed internet service, I had to buy a new DSL modem. Apparently the modem that I had purchased when I last had DSL from Qwest wasn't good enough, or they didn't support it. No big deal - AT&T provided me with a rebate that made my new modem nearly free.

I looked around before picking up this deal, and one of the things I had noticed was that every broadband provider that I had researched was offering a modem with wireless router capabilities. Although I didn't need a wireless router (I already had a nice Belkins one), I decided to go ahead and spend the extra bucks to have the router and modem in one. Why? So that if I had any trouble, AT&T couldn't try to pin the blame on my router. Makes sense, right? Sometimes spending a little more is worth it, especially if it means avoiding potential frustration with a phone company's tech support. This falls into a topic that I have covered in the past - the modern version of paying more for convenience.

None-the-less, I can't help but wonder if there are more people like me out there who have picked up a modem with wireless capabilities, and therefore didn't need to buy one separately. I wonder how much this is eating into the profits of wireless router manufacturers. If they don't have a deal established with a certain broadband provider, they may be in trouble.

Sure, wireless is still the "way of the future" (or really the "way of the now"), and there will be business users who still require wireless routers for adding more throughput and flexible connectivity to their existing setup, but for the most part I would be selling my stock in those wireless companies if I were you. We are on the verge of "he death of dial-up" anyway.

US needs more fiber

Ha! Before you run away, holding your nose, thinking this is another one of those cliche "diet" recommendations, please reconsider! For a change, this "fiber" post is referring to high-speed communication lines, the future of telecommunications.

As a former Baby Bell employee, it amazed me that so many of our telecommunications lines were still copper. In fact, we were just starting to deploy fiber to the home at the turn of the century. The reasoning? Cost, most likely, although the enhanced video and other highspeed services that can be packaged on a fiber line would (eventually) more than make up for that initial buildout cost.

In fact, we lived in a small town near the mountains in Colorado for a short time, where the local "mom and pop" phone comapny had actually deployed fiber to the home. Granted, most of the residents had no idea what this was. In fact, many of them didn't even use the internet yet, but they were prepared.

It is a common offering from more advanced communications companies like GOL in Japan, to offer fiber lines with blazing speeds up to 100MB. Here in the US, we're debating between the 1.5Mb of local DSL and 3MB (if you're lucky) with cable. If I were moving to Japan (and if you ever plan on moving there, listen up!), I would check out Japan's only English ISP, where you can also grab ~47MB ADSL lines. Unbelievable. Companies like GOL even offer free setup for all of their web hosting packages and free domain name registrations, which means that your ISP and hosting needs could be tackled under one roof.

I ran across GOL while thumbing through the latest PayPerPost opportunities, and it really has me longing for the day when I can get great deals like this on amazing internet speeds packaged with hosting service. Seeing as this is the good ol' US of A, I give it at least another 7-10 years before the "bellheads" have figured out how to offer opportunities like these to average net users like myself. But then again, the average net user of the USA probably wouldn't know what to do with this type of bandwidth.

Ahhh, but there's always video!