Looking towards the future:
Where do we need to go?
Objective: Let's discuss what WISPs need to take in order to
survive and prosper in today's rapidly changing and
competitive technological environment.
Overview:
It’s 2005, and this is what WISPs are facing today:
-----Original Message-----
From: Trango-owner_at_part-15.org
Sent: Friday, December 31, 2004 3:56 PM
To: Trango_at_part-15.org;
Subject: [Trango] OT LOOKING GLOOM for my WISP!!!!! VERIZON FIOS IS HERE!@@@@@@
Okay UPS just hand delivered a 2 page letter describing the NEW Verizon Fiber now available in my neighborhood..
Starting out at 5 megs down and 2 megs up for $39.95! 15 megs 2 meg down at $49.95
My question to you is HOW do I compete with only 3-6 megs available to me (other 3 megs have not been provisioned yet so I only have 3 so far) I am calling now to see if I can resell this service and then NAT some IPs to clients and see if I can do that???
-----End Message-----
More Upstream and bigger wireless pipes are not going to solve these issues, as wireline technologies have an inherent economic and technical advantage over wireless (sure, if the moons were in perfect alignment we might cost effectively get GigE over wireless, but the wireline guys can do 10GigE faster/cheaper/more reliably today - hence why in the late 90s, large carriers replaced their x-country microwave backbones w/ fiber)
It is necessary to remember that as independent license exempt operators, we are all "Davids" vs. the incumbent cable ops, ILECs, etc - the "Goliaths" of Telecom. Now, if we try to match "Goliath" w/ sheer brawn (in this case, competing head to head on bandwidth and price) - it's only a matter of time before we lose due to "Goliath's" greater strength (in this case, manpower, money, resources, government support, etc)
As the "underdog" - the most notable advantage we possess is speed and flexibility. What is necessary is that we utilize this speed and flexibility to our advantage. How is this done? Well, for starters, rather than competing on their terms, we should work on "rephrasing the problem" and fighting them on
our terms...
