Posted on 03/11/2007 11:04:24 PM PDT by HAL9000
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- When Microsoft Corp. delivers a mysterious prototype for government testing this coming week, it will mark a crucial juncture for a high-stakes bid to change the way consumers get their Internet access.That bid has cast Microsoft and a group of powerful allies from Silicon Valley in the relatively unfamiliar role of Washington policy players.
Microsoft's prototype, delivered on behalf of the group, is a wireless device that could provide the public with free and more widespread access to the Web instead of relying on networks owned by big telecom and cable firms.
That breakthrough, tapping into an unused part of the nation's airwaves, is politically charged because it threatens to shift the Internet-access business away from telecom and cable companies that are historically well-connected in Washington, throwing open the field to a brand new batch of competitors.
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(Excerpt) Read more at rds.yahoo.com ...
Very inneresting. More competition is good
Part of this doesn't make sense:
"But along the way, a host of big guns in the telecom industry hope Microsoft and its white-space cohorts will fail. The group includes Google Inc. , Hewlett-Packard Co , Dell Inc. and Intel Corp."
These aren't telecoms and why would they hope it fails?
Ping
The "big guns in the telecom industry" are AT&T, Verizon and the other companies traditionally associated with telecom.
The "white-space cohorts" are Google, HP, Dell and Intel.
... and Microsoft. Sorry about that omission.
They control the router traffic?
All messages going over their routers is their property and becomes a datamine.
When I hear the word, "free," I also hear alarm bells. Things that are "free" are always the most expensive.
ping
Ah.. thanks.
Mixed up the Cohorts and the Big Guns.
I'll speculate that the concept for funding the "free service" is from advertising revenue. We'd probably have to endure something like a thirty-second commercial when logging on. That would be tolerable, but I hope they wouldn't turn it into a constant barrage of advertising.
There have been business plans circulated that would offer 'free' telco service but the call recipient would have to listen to a sponsor's ad pitch before the call went through.
TANSTAAFL.
Meanwhile, in the time honored interests of screwing the public,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Another interesting development lately is Current Communications. www.current.net
This is broadband and VOIP over the power line (BPL), which basically means that you get internet from your electric socket in your house. Google is one of their investors.
CURRENT’s investors include Duke Energy Corporation, EarthLink, Inc., EnerTech Capital, Google Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co., General Electric Company, Hearst Corporation, Liberty Associated Partners (an investment partnership between Liberty Media Corporation and the Berkman family), Sensus Metering Systems Inc. and TXU Corp.
It will be interesting to see how they compete with the cable and telephone companies.
Google and Microsoft want power.
WiFi ping
The last I read, Broadband over Powerline (BPL) is not selling well at least not to utility companies. They aren't in a hurry to branch out into becoming telcos, after all. An alternative application for the technology is the monitoring of the network. It's a shame that it's not catching on in more markets, not even in Houston where a key BPL innovator is based, because BPL provides for fast access (surpassing DSL, I think), and is reportedly accessible wherever there's an electricity outlet. Too bad countries like Mexico, where BPL is desperately needed, have such unreliable electricity grids due to the existence of an electricity monopoly (http://www.cfe.gob.mx). All Carlos Slim, the telco monopolist down there has to do to stifle competition for his TelMex monopoly is keep the FCC (http://www.cofetel.gob.mx ) from licensing WiMax and he gets to remain in fat city.
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